by Denise Calaman

Created on: October 12, 2010   Last Updated: October 20, 2010

What young man wouldn’t like a little advice on the important how-to’s of life?  A little boy’s world can be magical and mythical and with a little help learning about the wonders of life the valuable lessons learned can make little boys into well rounded men.  Wouldn’t it be nice if there was some kind of book for little boys to guide them?  “The Dangerous Book for Boys” written and compiled by Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden is one such book. It’s just the type of book all little boys wish for. 

The book compiles almost everything a young boy should know about growing up.  In fact the introduction to this book written by the authors is titled, “I Didn’t Have This Book When I Was a Boy”.  Most men only wish that they had.

The book takes an adult male back to a more simple time.  And it introduces young boys to that more simple time.  They become introduced to a time when young men still played simple games like marbles and stickball.  It teaches young men how to construct tree houses and teaches Morris Code.  Everything that boys want and need to know to become knowledgeable, self-sufficient young men is in this book. 

The book is fun but it is also educational in that it includes some geography lessons, history lessons and even (ughh to a young man), literature.  But these lessons are stuck in between how to instructions such as how to build a tree house or how to make a water bomb. Learning fun lessons first makes reading about history seem not so bad. 

When I first picked up this book I thought that it was maybe a bit old fashioned.  After all there are how to instructions in the book on how to skip stones and marbling paper.  But in reading the book I realized that there is nothing wrong with learning these things.  Some of these activities seem to be lost to a video game, computerized society.  I suddenly realized that I want my young sons to learn these things.  And that’s exactly why the authors wrote this book. 

There are secret codes and secret languages included in this book.  Young boys finally have a book especially created for them; one that no young girl would dare to pick up; and one that no young boy will easily put down.  This book may just earn its title because it can be in fact very dangerous once little boys get their hands on a copy.  I gave this book to my young sons when they were a mere three years old.  They instantly became fascinated by it even at such a young age.

I think it’s great that young boys have a book to exclusively call their own.  “The Dangerous Book for Boys” is fact filled and wholesome fun for the youngest men in our lives and I think that it deserves to grace any home library where there is a young man is growing up.

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