Dads and Moms look out , there is a new book about ‘Boy Fun’ that doesn’t involve video games or cell phones…They cover the biggest bases including: Sling shots, bow and arrows, treehouses, building bird houses, stars planets, dinosaurs and of course young archaeologists!
It’s called The Dangerous Book for Boys and it encompasses everything fun about our youth. Imagining we are pirates on a bright Saturday afternoon - the large boulder in our backyard is the ship and the garden stakes are our swords! I just bought 2 of these one for my Nephew and another for myself! By the time we have children it should be worn and tattered enough to look like an ancient text for boys…[however if Mrs. Phospher and I have girls there is a book for them as well -> The Daring Book for Girls which looks equally as good!
Didn’t this come out like a year ago? I don’t really understand that target demographic for this book; it’s some sort of weird irony thing that seems to be targeting an idealized Boomer childhood.
I just found out about it so if it came out last year I apologize. As for the idealized boomer childhood, I thought the stuff in it was fun to read and brought back great memories for me. I didn’t have an ideal childhood by any means, but many of the things in this book bring back the brighter parts of what good times I do remember.
It does look like a great book, and even devotes a couple of pages on how to not be such a doofus so you can be attractive to girls, which is nice.
Of course, I immediately looked for one for girls and went HARRRRUMPH! when there wasn’t one, so I’m glad to see they’re coming out with that one. I just hope it has the fun stuff like frog catching and slingshots, and not just Chinese jump rope and friendship bracelets. :rolleyes:
We bought this for Dweezil for Christmas. Of course, now that I see the Amazon price (15ish bucks) I’m kicking myself for getting it at the school book fair at list price (sigh… at least the school’s getting some money for it). Typo Knig said he’d heard of it, and that it’s sort of like the Boy Scout manual without the Boy Scout part.
It’s called The Daring Book for Girls, and if you look it up on Amazon.com the table of contents is there. Quite eclectic information - everything from how to tie a sari to how to negotiate a salary …
Oh, great Og. Boo! Hiss! I was merely joking about the Chinese jump rope and Friendship bracelets. Pages 25 and 99 mock me, indeed. :smack:
I really appreciate the attempt, but I’d much rather have a double volume entitled “The Dangerous and Daring Books for Kids”. Really, aren’t we past this gender segregation yet? Blech.
I’d put the **Dangerous Book for Boys **about midway between the Big Damn Book of Sheer Manliness and the Boy Scout Handbook; it’s like a big ol’ Cliff’s Notes for both of them.
I remember long ago convincing my young niece that her brother’s copy of **Boys’ Life **had secret information for men only, and that if even one girl got a hold of it, girls would rule the world and men would have to stay home and diaper babies’ butts. She read it from cover to cover and never believed another word out of my mouth. Hee!
I bought the book; it assumes an Edwardian, English public-school notion of boyhood, and isn’t really very dangerous at all (unless you’re felled by dissertations on grammar, tieing knots, or “manly” poems to memorize), granted, there is a chapter on “How to shoot rabbits,” but that’s about it.
I’m not saying it’s a bad book, but I’ve got to wonder if this isn’t targeted more at wealthy yuppie parent’s notion of upper-class youth than actual American boys. I’m also somewhat amazed that Disney has bought the book’s movie rights.
For fans, a girl’s version entitledThe Daring Book for Girls has just been published. I think the following quote from this latter article is apt:
I gave the girls’ one to the Princess for her birthday. She got bored quickly. I, on the other hand, enjoyed it, mostly because the stuff in it wasn’t what I was exposed to as a child. Maybe she’ll enjoy it more when she’s older.
My daughter’s been reading both of them; she thinks they’re neat. Good enough for me. She is dying to make a bow and arrow and spent two days making friendship bracelets (sorry, WhyNot, but true).
No, I think it’s great! Don’t misunderstand me, I like friendship bracelets. I’ve recently become a beader myself, and it’s great fun. But the bow-and-arrow thing she got out of the “boy’s” book. Perusing the table of contents’, there are a lot more active activities in the “boy’s” book, and a lot more quiet arts and crafts in the “girl’s” book. And even the history lessons: “boys” get lessons on warfare and science, “girls” get letters from the First Lady to the President.
No, they’re not teaching foot binding or corsetry, but they are still enforcing gender stereotypes. I’m glad that you got your daughter both books, and I’m glad she’s sensible enough to take what she likes from each without limiting herself the ways the editors of the books tried to limit her.
I downloaded the “excerpt” from the link in the OP and it was all the regulations on the correct dimensions and sizes for a football pitch. Didn’t grab my interest at all.
I would have preferred one big kids’ book too. But it seems to me that in some ways, gender stereotypes are enforced more than ever in children. You can hardly find practical play clothes for girls, boys’ clothes all have trucks and dinosaurs on them, series books are nearly all either very boy or very girl (Deltora Quest vs. Pony Pals), and toy stores are the same.
About the only real difference I can see is that girls play far more sports these days, which is great. But otherwise, I’m not sure a lot of strides have been made, and in a lot of ways we’ve downright regressed.
Girls’ and boys’ activity books have always been popular; I suppose the publishers wanted to continue the tradition. But I would have preferred something more like the “Book of Knowledge” set I have, which is a similar collection of all sorts of information/games/activities/puzzles, but not divided by sex. It’s from 1901.
I agree, but there’s no label on Bob the Builder toys that outright *says *it’s for boys (despite the pictures of all boys and the color theme that “everyone knows” is boy colored). There is one on this book - the title.
For Christmas, my daughter’s getting a toy kitchen *and *a Bob the Builder toolbelt with tools and a hardhat. I intentionally alternate which sets of Lego (well, Duplo) we buy - one set of primary colors, one of pinks and purples and yellows.
sigh And yeah, you’re right, it hasn’t really changed, and if anything, it’s getting more segregated by sneaky methods (putting all the building sets on the “boy” side of the store) instead of blatant ones that are easy to laugh at. But that doesn’t mean I’m likely to stop whining about it!
