The Dangerous Book for Boys
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- ISBN13: 9780061243585
- Condition: USED – VERY GOOD
- Notes:
Product Description
The bestselling book for every boy from eight to eighty, covering essential boyhood skills such as building tree houses, learning how to fish, finding right north, and even answering the age ancient question of what the huge deal with girls is.
In this digital age there is still a place for knots, skimming stones and tales of incredible courage. This book recaptures Sunday afternoons, stimulates curiosity, and makes for fantastic father-son activities. The brothers Conn and Hal have place together a wonderful collection of all things that make being young or young at heart fun–building go-carts and electromagnets, identifying insects and spiders, and flying the world’s best paper airplanes.
The completely revised American Edition includes:
The Greatest Paper Airplane in the World
The Seven Wonders of the Very ancient World
The Five Knots Every Boy Should Know
Stickball
Slingshots
Fossils
Building a Treehouse
Building a Bow and Arrow
Fishing (revised with US Fish)
Timers and Tripwires
Baseball’s “Most Valuable Players”
Legendary Battles-Including Lexington and Concord, The Alamo, and Gettysburg
Spies-Codes and Ciphers
Building a Go-Cart
Navajo Code Talkers’ Glossary
Girls
Cloud Formations
The States of the U.S.
Mountains of the U.S.
Navigation
The Declaration of Independence
Skimming Stones
Building a Periscope
The Ten Commandments
Common US Trees
Timeline of American History
Amazon.com Review
Equal parts droll and gorgeous nostalgia book and heartfelt plea for a renewed sense of adventure in the lives of boys and men, Conn and Hal Iggulden’s The Treacherous Book for Boys became a mammoth bestseller in the United Kingdom in 2006. Adapted, in moderation, for American customs in this edition (cricket is gone, rugby remains; conkers are out, Navajo Code Talkers in), The Treacherous Book is a guide book for dads as well as their sons, as a reminder of lore and technique that have not yet been completely lost to the digital age. Recall the adventures of Scott of the Antarctic and the Battle of the Somme, relearn how to palm a coin, tan a skin, and, most charmingly, wrap a package in brown paper and string. The book’s ambitions are both modest and winningly optimistic: you get the sense that by learning how to place a splint or write in invisible ink, a boy might be prepared for anything, even girls (which warrant a tiny but wise chapter of their own).
Inside The Treacherous Book for Boys
 Figure 8 Knot |
 Sheet Bend Knot |
 The Battle of Waterloo |
Questions for Conn Iggulden
Conn and Hal Iggulden are two brothers who have not forgotten what it was like to be boys. Conn taught for many years before apt one of the most admired and well loved young past novelists with his Emperor series, based on the life of Julius Caesar, and his newly embarked series on Genghis Khan, while Hal is a theater director. We questioned Conn about their collaboration.
Amazon.com: It’s hard to clarify what a phenomenon The Treacherous Book for Boys was in the UK last year. When I would check the bestseller list on our sister site, Amazon.co.uk, there would be, along with your book, which spent much of the year at the top of the list, a half-dozen apparent knockoff books of similar boy knowledge. Clearly, you tapped into something huge. What do you reflect it was?
Iggulden: In a word, fathers. I am one myself and I reflect 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 vital bit–they’ll take worse risks on their own. If we do away with challenging playgrounds and cancel school trips for dread 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 excellent for their health or their safety.
You only have to push a boy on a swing to see how much enjoys the thrill of danger. It’s hard-wired. Remove any opportunity to test his courage and they’ll find ways to test themselves that will be seriously treacherous for everyone around them. I reflect of it like playing the lottery–a name has to say “Look, you won’t win–and your children won’t be hurt. Relax. It won’t be you.”
I reflect that’s the core of the book’s success. It isn’t just a collection of things to do. The heroic tales alone are something we haven’t had for too long. It isn’t about climbing Everest, but it is an attitude, a philosophy for fathers and sons. Our institutions are too wrapped up in terror over being sued–so we have to do things with them ourselves. This book isn’t a terrible place to start.
As for knockoff books–fantastic. They’ll give my son something to read that doesn’t occupy him learning a dull moral lesson of some kind–just enjoying an adventure or learning skills and crafts so that he has a feeling of competence and confidence–just as we have.
Amazon.com: You made some changes for the U.S. edition, and I for one am sorry that you have removed the section on conkers, if only because it’s such a lovely and mysterious word. What are (or what is) conkers?
Iggulden: Horse chestnuts strung on a shoelace and knocked against one another until they shatter. In the entire history of the world, no one has ever been hurt by a conker, but it’s still been banned by some British schools, just in case. Another school banned paper airplanes. Honestly, it’s enough to make you weep, if I did that sort of thing, which I try not to. Reading Jane Austen is still allowed, but.
Amazon.com: What knowledge did you choose was vital to add for American boys? I notice in both editions you have an brilliant and useful section on table football, as played with coins. Is paper football strictly an American pastime? I’m not sure I could have gotten through the fourth grade lacking it.
Iggulden: I like knowing the details of battles, so Gettysburg and the Alamo had to go in, along with the Gettysburg take up, stickball, state capitals, U.S. mountains, American trees, insects, U.S. past timelines, and a lot of others. Navajo code talkers of WWII is a fantastic chapter. It probably helps that I am a huge fan of America. It was only while rewriting for the U.S. that I realized how many positive references there already are. You have NASA and NASA trumps nearly anything.
As for paper football, ever since I thought of putting the book together, people keep adage things like “You have rockets in there, yes? Everyone likes rockets!” Paper football is the first American one, but there will be many others. No book in the world is long enough to place them all in–unless we do a sequel, of course.
Amazon.com: Do you reflect The Treacherous Book for Boys is being read by actual boys, or only by evocative adults? Have you seen boys getting up from their Xboxes to go outside and perform first aid or tan animal skins or erect go-carts?
Iggulden: I’ve had a lot of emails and letters from boys who loved the book–as well as fathers. I’ve had responses from kids as young as ten and an ancient man of 87, who pointed out a problem with the shadow stick that we’ve since changed. The thing to remember is that we may be older and more cynical every year, but boys simply aren’t. If they are agreed the chance to make a go-cart with their dad, they jump at it. Mine did. Nothing gives me more pleasure than to know the book is being used with fathers and sons together, trying things out. Nothing is more valuable to a boy than time with his dad, learning something fun–or something hard. That’s part of the attitude too. If it’s hard, you don’t make it simple, you grab it by the throat and hang on for as long as it takes.
The book is regularly bought by fathers, of course. Their sons don’t know Scott of the Antarctic is a fantastic adventure tale. How could they if it isn’t taught any more? Excellent, heroic tales don’t appear much in modern school curriculums–and then we marvel why boys don’t seem interested.
Amazon.com: And finally, on to the vital questions: Should Pluto still be a planet? And what was the best dinosaur?
Iggulden: Pluto is a planet. I know there are scientists who say it isn’t, but it’s huge enough to be round and it has a moon, for crying out loud. Of course it’s a planet. Give it ten years and they’ll be agreeing with me again.
As for the best dinosaur, it depends what you mean by best. For sheer perfection, it probably has to be the shark and the crocodile. Modern ones are smaller but their record for sheer survival is pretty impressive. I only hope humanity can do as well. The only thing that will stop us is worrying too much.
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I reflect this book was improperly named. It should have been titled: “Treacherous Book For Boys, according to your Mom” or “Treacherous Book for Boys growing up in the 1950s”
At least that was my my impression. Pretty lame stuff. Fossils? Baseball? Knots? What’s treacherous about a fossil? Marbles? Nobody’s played marbles for 50 years. Or baseball? Well, I did bat my small sister in the crotch once with a ball-so I can see that…
If I can’t “shoot my eye out,” I’m really not interested. This book is secretly a feminist tool-designed to keep boys from doing what they REALLY want to do–shoot people’s eyes out.
I recommend “Anarchists Cook Book.” Now, THAT’S a treacherous book for boys! Or the Koran!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
i am curious why it is that the authors of this book took pains to make it sexist. tying knots, fishing, building forts, learning morse code, discerning different kinds of trees and clouds…. these are all fun things for kids. not boys in particular, but children. i have a daughter who would like a lot of these activities and i buy this book for her, if it wasn’t for the brow beating way they deliberately make it exclusive. i’m surprised that in 2007 there are still people who cling so tenaciously to sexist mores that they have to mark gender neutral activities as “for boys.”
it’s a bring shame on. i’d have bought it, if not for that.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
I read the entire book. It was very Republican. It was very British. It was kind of quaint. Until the KILLING chapter. The book advises boys to get a GUN and then go out and shoot and kill a rabbit, then skin it, gut it and cook it. So um…they can learn where food comes from.
If there is something I like to see it is encouraging children to use guns and kill tiny defenseless animals. Nothing says – excellent ancient fashioned fun like skinning an animal and ripping its internal organs from the cracked cavity of its ribcage. I mean what else could be more wholesome?
Come on Billy (or Neville if you are in the UK) come out with Dad and lets kill a bunny! Then you can skin it, decapitate it, gut it and cook it – YUM!
If you want to show Billy where food comes from – there are plenty of upsetting videos available from PETA that will turn him into a Lacto-vegetarian quicker than you can say Soy Burger. He doesn’t need to really kill anything. Or use a gun.
Reflect about what a better place the world would be if small boys didn’t grow up using guns and playing guns and playing let’s kill EVERYTHING ON THE PLANET!
Why not try to teach Billy RESPECT FOR ALL SENTIENT BEINGS?
We might find ourselves down a war or two in the future.
Update: I was stunned by the comments on this review. There are reasonably a few people (mostly men) who felt it was very vital to make fun of me, belittle me and suggest that I need to be a killer with a gun and a meat eater in order to have an opinion. I do not eat animals. I do not use animal based products as much as I can possibly know what is in everything that I buy. I am careful about this and stick to mostly whole foods and unprocessed items. I am Buddhist and therefore have respect for all sentient beings. An Ant. A Cockroach. And even the people who posted such grave comments aimed at me. On the upside, it’s nice to know that with the exception of a few vegetarians who made comments supporting my review that the additional commenter’s proved my point exactly as they showed themselves to be mindless, tiny defenseless animal murdering, gun-toting thugs.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
Save your time & money…while it would be an appealing resource book, lets face it you can find all this information in additional books (try a used book store) or even better:
sign up for BOY SCOUTS!!! You child will get more out of what they would learn from this book and have additional kids to play with…which is more appealing than playing with mom&dad, sorry but its right…
I’m sorry but if I had to choose one, I’d take the Boy Scouts over the book.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
Seems like a fantastic book with all the attention to non-TV activities, battles, knots, and construction, but it really is “treacherous” in the sense that it contains material about Christianity. What is this, an attempt to slip in a small dogma and indoctrination, among the “manly” activities? Seems like a preface to right-wing theocracy to me….
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5