Posted on 07/06/2006 6:55:25 AM PDT by KeyLargo
Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails are what readers of a surprise bestseller are made of.
The Dangerous Book for Boys by the British brothers Conn and Hal Iggulden is a practical manual that returns boys to the wonder and almost lost world of tree houses and pirate flags. It celebrates the art of teaching an old mutt new tricks and accepts skinned knees as an acceptable risk for running through fields with the same dog yapping along.
As of July 3, The Dangerous Book is the number one seller on Amazon UK and it is holding steady at about 7,000 on Amazon in the U.S., where it was published on June 5. The Australian News reports that the book "has made it to the top five of…Amazon [Australia], after just a week."
Those results make publishers take notice. But social commentators are also reacting with both applause and condemnation.
Condemnation arises because The Dangerous Book breaks the dominant and politically correct stereotype for children's books. It presents boys as being deeply different than girls in terms of their interests and pursuits. Although it is highly probable that bookstores will sell the book to girls who then will go on to practice skimming stones, nevertheless the genders are separated within the book's pages.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Amazon UK Review:
Synopsis If ever there was a book to make you switch off your television set, "The Dangerous Book for Boys" is it. How many other books will help you thrash someone at conkers, race your own go-cart, and identify the best quotations from Shakespeare? "The Dangerous Book for Boys" gives you facts and figures at your fingertips - swot up on the solar system, learn about famous battles and read inspiring stories of incredible courage and bravery. Teach your old dog new tricks. Make a pinhole camera. Understand the laws of cricket. There's a whole world out there: with this book, anyone can get out and explore it. "The Dangerous Book for Boys" is written with the verve and passion that readers of Conn Iggulden's number one bestselling novels have come to expect. This book, his first non-fiction work, has been written with his brother as a celebration of the long summers of their youth and as a compendium of information so vital to men of all ages. Lavishly designed and fully illustrated in color and black and white throughout, it's set to be a perfect gift for Father's Day and beyond. Chapters in "The Dangerous Book for Boys" include: The Seven Ancient Wonders of the World, Conkers, Laws of Football, Dinosaurs, Fishing, Juggling, Timers and Tripwires, Kings and Queens, Famous Battles, Spies, Making Crystals, Insects and Spiders, Astronomy, Girls, The Golden Age of Piracy, Secret Inks, Patron Saints of Britain, Skimming Stones, Dog Tricks, Making a Periscope, Coin Tricks, Marbles, Artillery, The Origin of Words, and The Solar System.
It surprises me that anyone would think this is a new concept. All the topics are covered in books in our county library (well, except "Patron Saints of Britain" and "Conkers," whatever that is.) Not to mention Boy Scout and Cub Scout handbooks, also available in the library.
What's really needed is parents who will give their kids the opportunity to do these things.
/johnny
I need the women of today to raise boys who will turn out to be real men. I have two girls and want them to marry a man like my dad and my (former marine) hubby. Not some pansy, feminized poofster.
My lib sister-in-law got her son a kitchen set and a tea set. She thinks it's darling that her nephew is obesessed with vacuum cleaners. Lord help us.
Vacuum cleaners can make him rich and happy. Google "Don Aslett" for a vision of his future!
I just ordered this from Amazon, but they don't stock it themselves. I had to buy it from one of their vendors.
But even without stocking it themselves, it's in the top 50 bestsellers!
" It presents boys as being deeply different than girls in terms of their interests and pursuits."
Well, duh....
I hope that's how the kid turns out.
"I need the women of today to raise boys who will turn out to be real men. I have two girls and want them to marry a man like my dad and my (former marine) hubby. Not some pansy, feminized poofster."
I'm amazed by how many men I see every day that are highly feminized. They just don't act like men. They're not flaming but they just don't have that manly air about them. I was raised up in the South back in the 50's and these guys would have been laughed at.
God help us.
I remember my friends and me managing pretty well without blueprints or a willing parent. In fact, the willing parents were the scarcest item on the materials list.
>>I remember my friends and me managing pretty well without blueprints or a willing parent. In fact, the willing parents were the scarcest item on the materials list.<<
One of the main problems with parenting I see today is mom and dad amusing the kids 24/7. Although we don't live in a world where kids can run the way they used to, they must be allowed to use their imaginations and amuse themselves.
In my homeschooling house, the kids are allowed to watch tv during breakfast and again while I make dinner. After a half an hour at each time, I tell them to play and use their imaginations. Whether we have other children here, we go to someone's house or we are here alone, I don't amuse my kids. When I play with them, I want to, not have to.
>>I'm amazed by how many men I see every day that are highly feminized. They just don't act like men. They're not flaming but they just don't have that manly air about them. I was raised up in the South back in the 50's and these guys would have been laughed at.<<
Exactly.
Yes! Bingo!
It seems like a reborn idea to me, rather than 'new'. My son is a teen. This anti-boy, boys-are-bad mentality was de rigeur during his childhood. It took a while to trickle down to our more rural area, but there it is. Myself and other mothers of boys, his playmates as a young boy, were able to be sure there was room for all the boy stuff my generation grew up with, but many were raised differently. My nephew never had a toy gun until he was about 8, my sister finally gave in when she realized every toy she gave him became a defacto toy gun! Tee hee. So for some who believed the nonsense of a decade or 2 ago and for others who are rabidly feminazi this is a 'new' idea, and I'm sure some will want to discount or demonize it.
My four year old son and I built a birdhouse and a mailbox together this last weekend. Then we went out by the barn and he got to "fire" his BB gun for the first time. Guess what? He liked it (go figure). Our big Independence Day event was going to a pond near the house to fish.
I wish I had an arsenal of real guns like my boys have of toy guns. Cap guns, squirt guns, realistic M-16's and Uzi's (those were mine that I saved for them), Airsoft, BB, Nerf, ping pong and rubber band.
I'm raising my girls to be girls and my boys to be boys, just the way the Lord intended it.
Blueprints, hell I still can't read them today but we built some amazing forts. My favorite was a three room two story fort complete with real windows from a barn that was torn down. It stayed there for years and served in later years as a great spot to drink our warm beer that we had stashed there while we were oogling over the Playboy magazine stolen from one of the father's collection, later returned of course.
My son asked for and received the movie Gettysburg for 10th birthday. He will sit and absorb history for hours cause he likes the battles.
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