As one of the kids who grew up reading this kind of book, I can appreciate what the author was attempting to recapture. Ye cynics out there will find plenty of reasons to dismiss the book as more of an appeal the the grownup buyer’s romanticization of a notion of childhood gone by. The layout mimics the look of those old books from the sixties, although in a way that only modern printing methods can.
The “Dangerous” part of the title is probably meant as a bit of irony, a reference to the fact that the days when a boy was expected to be carrying a pocket knife are over, possibly for good. Probably the discussion of killing and eating a rabbit will tip the scales in the minds of most people, though I think the repeated suggestion that a kid should try stitching his dog’s wounds is sufficiently nuts that I suspect it was put in as a kind of joke. It’s far less dangerous than, say, The Boy Mechanic (at least the older ones I’ve seen. I have not seen the new ones, but the old ones included instructions for such things as electronically fired gunpowder cannons, and making your own hang gliders out of wood.
Most of the subjects treated in the book are treated more fully elsewhere. But The Dangerous Book for Boys serves as a digest of things which may tickle a kid’s fancy enough to make them look for more information. For my own part, however, I only know old books on the various subjects, some of which are very dear to me. I have the same vague sense that I presume pushes this book off the shelves that a lot of these joyful boyhood activities are lost not even to competing joys like video games but to a new ethos in which kids are pushed away from activities that bark the knuckles and skin the knees. But the fact is I only know the old stuff, and presume it’s been lost. Has it?
Here’s what I particularly like about the book, in case this will recommend it to anyone:
[ul]
[li]It’s browsable almanac of a variety of subject matters. You give it to the kid and don’t make a big deal of it. Let it work its own magic one day when the kid is bored.[/li][li]It includes school-type subjects like grammar and treats these as though these too are fascinating secrets to be explored, which they are. I suspect children are sufficiently innured to the Learning is Fun! ploys that even this much less obvious approach will still be scorned, but at least it doesn’t signal how boring it is by insisting on how much fun it is.[/li][li]As much as it’s a call back to older types of book, it does seem to be short-attention span friendly[/li][li]It contains reference charts for things that even as an adult I bookmarked: Morse code, poker hands, ect. Of course, these are all now goggleable, but…[/li][/ul]
Here are some complaints:
[ul]
[li]Do not try to sew up your dog’s wounds.[/li][li]The charts for “Standard and Metric Measurements” appears designed to make the Metric system look bizzare and arcane. On the one side you get the one of the English unit. On the other side you get some crazy number with a bunch of decimal places as the metric unit. They don’t include a chart going the other way. Yet, of these two systems, the Metric system is the more intuitive. A two liter bottle of pop weighs two kilograms. Therefore a liter of pop weighs what? How about 355 ml? Try going from the weight of a gallon to the weight of a pint so swiftly.[/li][li]The section on codes and ciphers does not even hint at the fascinating art of codebreaking. [/li][li]I’m glad to see Roleplaying Games get a fair mention, though that brief section might as well have been written decades ago. [/li][li]Seems like the First Aid section includes only enough to get yourself in trouble[/li][/ul]
Overall, this is a just barely adequate introduction to a lot of fascinating things which may catch a kid’s fantasy. I wish it included information on where to go next. It lists a number of fiction books “every boy should read” but none that expand on the brief treatment of all this book’s own topics. My knowledge is a bit dated, but I’d recommend:
Codes and Ciphers:
Alvin’s Secret Code - Integrates learing about codes and codebreaking into the story.
Codes, Ciphers and Secret Writing - It amazed me when Wheel of Fortune first came out that none of the contestants seemed to understand about the frequency table. Well, all of them do these days. But you can learn a lot about the language just from the charts in this book.
Poetry:
A Shropshire Lad - Some people are annoyed at Housman’s tragic sense of life, or his sophomoric sense of tragedy, but even now well past my adolescence, I find many of his verses both deeply touching and his acknowledgment of tragedy with his resort stiff-upper-lippy British stoicism have gotten me through many dark nights.
The Viking Book of Poetry of the English Speaking World - Everyone needs a solid anthology of poetry, and I have never been satisfied with any of the Nortons. The one volume version of the Viking Book covers early English verse through what was fairly modern when it was first published in the 40’s.
The Magic Book - Best single volume magic book I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot even with the new color illustrations. Covers the basics of sleight-of-hand with coins, cards and miscelaneous objects. Some lightning calculator tricks discussed. Basically, magic that can be done wherever you are with no special props needed, which is in many ways quite a bit more impressive than the kind of magic you see kids perform with magic sets.
Again, I’m mostly looking at old stuff, though I’m gratified to see that Alvin’s Secret Code has been back in print recently. I worry that series like that which taught science back in the 60’s and 70’s don’t teach science so well now. I’m sure if we put our heads together we can come up with the Further Reading list Iggulden skipped, possibly from fresher sources than my own.