The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn Iggulden, Hal Iggulden
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Book Reviews of The Dangerous Book for Boys
Book Review: The Appearance of Danger
Summary: 5 Stars
You expect an author to defend his own work, but I've never seen it done better than Conn Iggulden does in Amazon's own official editorial review and interview posted right on this product page:
"I think we've become aware that the whole 'health and safety' overprotective culture isn't doing our sons any favors. Boys need to learn about risk. They need to fall off things occasionally, or--and this is the important bit--they'll take worse risks on their own. If we do away with challenging playgrounds and cancel school trips for fear of being sued, we don't end up with safer boys--we end up with them walking on train tracks. In the long run, it's not safe at all to keep our boys in the house with a PlayStation. It's not good for their health or their safety."
That's it in a nutshell. As some reviewers have had the (there's no other word for it) stupidity to complain about, there's NOTHING in this book that's REALLY dangerous unless you go about it stupidly or carelessly. For example you cannot put someone's eye out with an air rifle unless you, stupidly or carelessly, point it at them (or yourself) first.
Other reviewers have suggested buying other books instead. Fine and dandy, many of their suggestions have merit, but why do they have to be "instead"? For example a boy who is really into building things and would not be intimidated by very detailed instructions and diagrams might prefer something like The Boy Mechanic: 200 Classic Things to Build, but boys who are being allowed to use Daddy's tools for the first time might prefer to start with the simpler projects in here.
Joining the Boy Scouts and buying the current edition of the Boy Scout Handbook is another great suggestion, but why does it have to be "instead"? A Boy Scout could get a lot of good things out of this book, and joining the Boy Scouts is going to be a much larger investment in money (and time) than buying this book.
Some reviewers have complained about the fact that it is intended for boys. Not to be politically incorrect, but let's face reality here: most boys but only some girls are going to be interested in this sort of book, and those girls who ARE going to be interested in this sort of book will absolutely LOVE the fact that it is intended for the boys they will be attempting to outdo at the activities described herein.
Some reviewers have complained about it being too "British".
Please.
I only wish it were possible to purchase the British editions easily and at a reasonable price (or at least SEE what was taken out); I'm rather curious.
Finally, some reviewers have complained about what was left out, and most of the things they complain about being left out arguably should have been included. However, if all of the things that shouldn't have been left out HAD been included, this would have been a hundred volume set.
Those interested in further books in this series or in the companion series for girls are directed here: The Pocket Dangerous Book for Boys: Things to Do, The Pocket Dangerous Book for Boys: Things to Know, The Dangerous Book for Boys Yearbook, The Dangerous Book of Heroes, The Daring Book for Girls, The Pocket Daring Book for Girls: Things to Do, The Pocket Daring Book for Girls: Wisdom & Wonder, and The Double-Daring Book for Girls.
Book Review: A Breath of Fresh Air
Summary: 5 Stars
I have been thoroughly enjoying the book, as has my son and thousands of boys (and dads!) in Great Britain and the US. What is it about this book that brings such excitement to so many?
If I had to offer my opinion, I would say that the appeal of this book is that it does not ask any boy to apologize for being a boy. Our culture is infested with the demand that boys forgo their God given call to grow up to be men, largely because we have adopted an unhealthy view of just what a man is. Whether our example be found in Homer Simpson, Ray Romano or the dad on Family Guy, men are portrayed as selfish imbeciles in a large portion of the media. Women are shown to be compassionate and intelligent, and they are usually given the role of the one who fixes the problems created by men. I have no doubt that most women are compassionate and intelligent, but the common negative portrayal of men is presented far too often, and frankly I'm tired of it.
This book has a different take on what it means to be a boy, which is important because boys grow up to be men. From a biblical standpoint, men are meant to lead their families and churches by serving them. Where can you find such a concept on the television? You can't. This is yet another reason to get this book in the hands of a boy and his dad and get them outside to explore the world, whether that be an excursion in the woods or even just in the back yard. But how does this book portray a boy? What ideals are encouraged?
I'm glad you asked.
I simply cannot take this book section by section. There are instructions meant to get a boy started in tying knots, making a bow and arrow, fishing and many other activities. These are expected out of a book about being a boy. But included with such topics are other mini-chapters about the wonders of the world, grammar, historical battles, understanding latitude and longitude (something I never grasped in a classroom), the Declaration of Independence, poetry, Latin phrases, literature the Ten Commandments and also how to talk to girls.
I mention talking to girls last, not because it is the last topic, but because I would like to highlight it for a moment. The first piece of advice about girls is to listen to them. The second is to avoid a long string of nervous jokes by listening to them. I'm sure that my wife wishes I had this book as a child! After this, romance is mentioned. Buying flowers is often not a good idea if you are young, because the girl will know your parents purchased them. I wouldn't have thought of that. Anonymous valentines are a good idea, due to the suspense the girl will have trying to figure out who's eye she has caught. Vulgarity of all forms is to be avoided at all costs. Respect for girls is given the utmost priority.
Is this what is so dangerous about this book? Is it the high value the authors place upon girls or is it the very fact that they say that girls and boys are not identical? Is it the suggestion that every boy should have band-aids available for the inevitable mishap, because our bodies do heal? Or is it the way this book portrays a healthy boy in a way that expresses both a boy's natural desire for adventure and the ideal of respectfulness for others? I really can't say for sure.
If I had to pick one way that this book is considered dangerous and why it has met some opposition, I would say that it is because The Dangerous Book for Boys resonates so well with dads who can only wish such a book was available to them when they were growing up, and because their sons by and large are reveling in the contemplation of spending Sunday afternoons and long summer days with their dads, rediscovering what it means to be a boy with their father acting as the primary instructor.
I give this book my highest praise and encourage every dad to buy it for their sons. If you have a boy, you really need to get this book. If you don't have any boys, I'm sure you know somebody who does.
Book Review: Great info, easy to use, for girls too
Summary: 5 Stars
"I don't want to do anything but get fat and pasty and sit in front of a video screen." Has any boy ever said that? Of course not. But sadly, these days that's exactly what so many of them do. This book makes a good antidote. A clear-cut, easy-to-use guide for parents to help their children live full childhoods, it serves a role similar to books like What Your First Grader Needs to Know: Fundamentals of a Good First-Grade Education (The Core Knowledge Series). Much like lessons in a textbook, the various topics each stand alone on their own pages and are illustrated with drawings, photographs, or both.
And it's not just Tom Sawyer stuff. The book also includes academic topics such as grammar, geography, the solar system, even the Ten Commandments. See that table-of-contents-like list above, on this page's "product description"? That's less than half of what's here! There are 46 other articles, too, each one to four pages long:
1. Essential Gear
2. Questions About the World
3. Making a Battery
4. The Rules of Soccer
5. Dinosaurs
6. Understanding Grammar
7. Table Football
8. U.S. Naval Flag Codes
9. Making Crystals
10. Insects and Spiders
11. Juggling
12. Making a Paper Hat, Boat and Water Bomb
13. Astronomy -- the Study of the Heavens
14. Marbling Paper
15. First Aid
16. Map of the United States
17. Extraordinary Stories
18. Making Cloth Fireproof
19. Building a Workbench
20. Pocket Light
21. Five Pen-and-Paper Games
22. The Golden Age of Piracy
23. A Simple Electromagnet
24. Secret Inks
25. Sampling Shakespeare
26. Grinding an Italic Nib
27. The Moon Pinhole Projector Charting the Universe Dog Tricks Wrapping a Package in Brown Paper and String
28. Star Maps
29. Seven Poems Every Boy Should Know
30. Coin Tricks
31. Light
32. Latin Phrases Every Boy Should Know
33. How to Play Poker
34. Marbles
35. A Brief History of Artillery
36. The Origin of Words
37. The Solar System
38. The Game of Chess
39. Hunting and Cooking a Rabbit
40. Tanning a Skin
41. Growing Sunflowers
42. Role-Playing Games
43. Seven Modern Wonders of the World
44. Books Every Boy Should Read
45. Standard and Metric Measurements
46. Dangerous Book for Boys Badges
All in all, "The Dangerous Book for Boys" has only two flaws. First, the old-fashioned cover implies these subjects are more suited to Great Grandpa's memories than young Junior's life of today. But juggling? Chess? Soccer? What's so old-time about this stuff? Second, why "Boys"? "What's wrong with teaching our daughter how to tie a bowline, or make a paper airplane, or build a go cart?" my husband asked as he flipped through it. I guess the author, or publisher, is aware there's not much out there for parents of young boys and is trying to zero-in on that deserving niche.
To sum up, then, this book is useful even if you're the most modern of all families, even if you don't have a son. If you actually use it, it will become far more valuable to your child's happiness and sense of self than any video-game console, DVD, computer, or especially -- such blasphemy! -- the latest iPod. There's so much here to help your kid be a kid.
Book Review: A SAMPLER OF HEALTHY WAYS FOR BOYS TO TAKE RISKS AND FEED THEIR NATURAL CURIOSITY
Summary: 5 Stars
Conn Iggulde has a real heart for boys and what they need, and what it will take for us as a culture to get back to giving them that. He says that if we don't give boys healthy things that tap into their natural curiosity and desire to take risks, they won't stop being curious or taking risk; they'll find OTHER outlets that are NOT healthy. You cannot stop a boy from being a boy; all you can do is to turn him away from the harmful and toward that which builds character. We have failed to do that as a society, but hopefully this book will be a start, among others, toward reversing that trend.
One of the things Conn emphasizes is that boys and dads do things together and not to depend on institutions to build character in boys' lives. His book gives them a treasure chest of interesting and fun activities, as well as a world of knowledge. As far as activities, there are The Greatest Paper Airplane in the World, The Five Knots Every Boy Should Know, Making A Battery, How To Play Stickball, Building a Treehouse, Making a Bow and Arrow, Table Football, Fishing, Timers and Tripwires, Spies - Codes and Cipers, Making Crystals, Making a Go-Cart, Juggling, Making a Paper Hat, Boat and Water Bomb, Marbling Paper, First Aid, Making Cloth Fireproof, Building a Workbench, Pocket Light, Five Pen-and-Paper Games, A Simple Electromagnet, Secret Inks, Grinding an Italic Nib, Navigation, Skipping Stones, Pinhole Projector, Charting the Universe, Dog Tricks, Wrapping a Package in Brown Paper and String, Making a Periscope, Coin Tricks, How to Play Poker, Marbles, The Game of Chess, Hunting and Cooking a Rabbit, Tanning a Skin, Growing Sunflowers, and Role-Playing Games.
Among the knowledge covered are The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, Questions About the World (Parts 1, 2 and 3), Fossils, The Rules of Soccer, Dinosaurs, Understanding Grammar (Parts 1, 2 and 3), Baseball's Most Valuable Players, Famous Battles (Part 1 and 2), The Rules of Rugby, U.S. Naval Flag Codes, Extraordinary Stories (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5), Insects and Spiders, Astronomy, Navajo Code Talker's Dictionary, Girls, Cloud Formations, The Fifty States, Map of the United States, Mountains of the United States, The Golden Age of Piracy, Sampling Shakespeare, The Declaration of Independence, The Moon, Star Maps, Seven Poems Every Boy Should Know, Light, Latin Phrases Every Boy Should Know, A Brief History of Artillery, The Origin of Words, The Solar System, The Ten Commandments, Common Trees, Time Line of Early American History, Seven Modern Wonders of the World, Books Every Boy Should Read, and Standard and Metric Measurements.
These are things that most boys were taught by their dads or at least in school until Modern Education took over and started trying to make our boys "safe" instead of turning them into men of character. The Boy Scouts have been somewhat successful at trying to fill that role, but it's really the responsibility of fathers, and that is to whom it should return. The Dangerous Book For Boys is not an encyclopedia of activities and knowledge, but merely a sampler. The book is remarkable, not only for what it includes, but also for what it leaves out. Choices had to be made, and it was only meant to be a start. But it's a good start. What is most important is the vision for boys the book represents. I hope all of us will catch that vision and build on what the Iggulden brothers have started.
Waitsel Smith
Book Review: With any luck it could become a trend
Summary: 5 Stars
Never mind the boys, The Dangerous Book for Boys is one of those gorgeous tomes that adults will want to keep for themselves. Okay, my nine year old read it cover to cover, brought it to school, and kept it on his person so long that the book is now moth-eaten, full of dog-ears, and witness to a lot of danger. I finally managed to prise it from him so I could write this review, and after reading it, I understood exactly why he didn't want to let it go. Although there is a clear English-lad bias to the Iggulden's selections, the bits and pieces of "essential knowledge" that this book contains is the kind of information we may well be losing in this day of busy parents, too many lessons, too much television, and electronic voiceless games like the Xbox and Nintendo.
The book is a veritable Scouting manual full of things like how to create a really good paper plane, how to make, harden and play conkers, juggle, make a catapult, how to play football, play poker, chess, and how to fish. There are also great adventure stories including Scott of the Antarctic, Lord Nelson, and Joe Simpson's survival in the Andes, poems, a sampling of Shakespeare, Latin phrases, a list of books every boy should read, and a fact encyclopaedia including dealing with a star map, why the sky is blue, grammar, astronomy, first aid, and light.
True to its title, there is a kind of imparting of secret knowledge quality to the Iggulden's prose (and I love the idea of two brothers pulling this book together out of their shared stock of knowledge). The writing is a unique combination of matter-of-fact bluntness, mingled with a kind of whispered hush that puts the writer on exactly the level of the reader. I can imagine how grown-up and special a child will feel reading this. As for adults, you feel as if you deserve a special hat to wear once you've worked your way through.
The book itself is absolutely beautiful, without overt gilt. The clean red hardback cover with its gold and black lettering gives it a classic and slightly old fashioned look. Inside the feeling continues with illustrations, colour plates, charts, and beautiful marbled end papers.
The Dangerous Book for Boys is the kind of book children could share with their father. Although I loved it, there is a distinctive blokey feeling about it, and if it encouraged fathers to spend time with their sons building tree houses, playing conkers, charting the universe and creating batteries, it would be well worth it's relatively modest purchase price. It might also hold the key to getting modern children to forget about that horrid but ever popular word "bored" and start making use of the many resources around them to create interest and enjoyment.
Yes, there's a halcyon quality to The Dangerous Book for Boys, after all, in the main, children hardly learn history these days, grow up mostly without a well rounded education that includes Latin and grammar, don't know how to make a go-cart, and have no idea about the 7 wonders of the world. It isn't that hard to change that. Just get a copy of this book and sell it as a secret guide to all things that every boy must know, and you're well on the way to ousting the Xbox. With any luck it could become a trend.
Magdalena Ball is the author of Sleep Before Evening
"There is so much beautiful writing here, soaring passages."