by Dan Weaver

Created on: March 25, 2008   Last Updated: August 26, 2010

The Dangerous Book for Boys (Collins, 2007) is one of the most wonderful, sexist books I have ever read. I don't mean sexist in a bad way. The Dangerous Book for Boys does not put down girls, but it does not shy away from the idea that boys and girls are different. Indeed, it is unapologetic about the idea.

The book I bought is the American version. The British version came out first and was a big hit in the United Kingdom. The American version replaces pounds with dollars, prime ministers with presidents and rugby with baseball. Overall, the changes are minor.

So what is so dangerous about the book? Really it is not a very dangerous book, unless you believe the idea that boys and girls are equal but different is a radical one. Probably the most dangerous thing the book teaches boys is how to make a bow and arrow. It also teaches them how to hunt and cook a rabbit and build a tree house, things that boys have been doing for centuries.

In an interview with amazon.com, Conn Iggulden made it clear that he believes boys are hardwired for danger. A father, novelist and former schoolteacher, Iggulden believes that society has become overprotective of boys and that it isn't doing them any favors.

In the interview, he says, "Boys need to learn about risk. They need to fall off things occasionally, or (and this is the important bit) they'll take worse risks on their own. If we do away with challenging playgrounds and cancel school trips for fear 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 good for their health or their safety."

Iggulden is disturbed by a society that bans paper airplanes in some schools, and, of course, The Dangerous Book for Boys includes plans for making paper airplanes. It also includes stories about heroes for boys-men like Scott of the Antarctic and the Wright Brothers. In many ways The Dangerous Book for Boys is a nostalgic book, a book that returns to a time where boys not only did dangerous things but had heroes who were not athletes or rock stars.

Here is a random selection of other things the book includes: knot tying, making a go-cart, secret inks, sampling Shakespeare, the 10 commandments, making fireproof cloth, the origin of words, famous battles, and a short history of artillery.

As you can see from the random selections above, Iggulden's book does not ignore a boy's intellectual, moral and religious sides. In many ways, the selection of material for the book harkens back to the Victorian age.

The Dangerous Book for Boys was one of the top 100 favorite books of amazon.com customers for 2007 and was an editor's pick as well. After reading it, I can see why. I enthusiastically recommend the book to all boys from age six to sixty. It's the sort of book I wish had been around when I was a boy. No doubt some tomboys will love the book as well, although after the success of The Dangerous Book for Boys, Collins came out with The Daring Book for Girls by Andrea J. Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz.

If The Dangerous Book for Boys owes anything to previous authors, it owes something to Rudyard Kipling and Mark Twain, but especially Mark Twain. It isn't hard to imagine Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, even though they didn't care much for books, reading and loving The Dangerous Book for Boys. No doubt if they were alive today, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn would be doing some of the activities from the book, filming them and uploading them to YouTube.

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