The Dangerous Book for Boys

The bestselling book for each boy from eight to eighty, covering necessary boyhood skills such as building tree houses, learning how to fish, finding true north, and even answering the age old question of what the big deal together with girls is.

In this digital age there is still a situate for knots, skimming stones and stories of incredible courage. This book recaptures Sunday afternoons, stimulates curiosity, and makes for excellent father-son activities. The brothers Conn and Hal have put mutually a wonderful collection of all things this do being young or young at heart fun--building go-carts and electromagnets, identifying insects and spiders, and flying the world's excellent paper airplanes.

The fully revised American Edition consists of:

The Greatest Paper Airplane in the World
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
The Five Knots Each Boy Should Recognize
Stickball
Slingshots
Fossils
Building a Treehouse
Making a Bow and Arrow
Fishing (revised together with US Fish)
Timers and Tripwires
Baseball's "Much Valuable Players"
Famous Battles-Counting Lexington and Concord, The Alamo, and Gettysburg
Spies-Codes and Ciphers
Making a Go-Cart
Navajo Code Talkers' Dictionary
Girls
Cloud Formations
The States of the U.S.
Mountains of the U.S.
Navigation
The Declaration of Independence
Skimming Stones
Making a Periscope
The Ten Commandments
Common US Trees
Timeline of American History

Inside The Dangerous 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 becoming one of the much admired and popular young historical novelists together 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 asked Conn concerning their collaboration.

Amazon.com: It's difficult to describe what a phenomenon The Dangerous 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 together 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 big. What do you believe it was?

Iggulden: In a word, fathers. I am one myself and I believe we've become aware this the whole "health and security" overprotective culture isn't doing our sons any favors. Boys want to study concerning risk. They want to fall off things occasionally, or--and this is the important bit--they'll get worse risks on their own. If we do away together with challenging playgrounds and terminate school trips for fear of being sued, we don't end up together with safer boys--we end up together with them walking on train tracks. In the long run, it's not safe at all to keep our boys in the house together with a Playstation. It's not good for their health or their security.

You only have to push a boy on a swing to see how much enjoys the thrill of danger. It's hard-wired. Shunt any opportunity to test his courage and they'll locate ways to test themselves this will be seriously dangerous for everyone all-around them. I believe of it like playing the lottery--someone has to say "Look, you won't win--and your kids won't be harm. Relax. It won't be you."

I believe this's the core of the book's success. It isn't just a collection of things to do. The heroic stories alone are something we haven't had for too long. It isn't concerning 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 together with them ourselves. This book isn't a bad situate to begin.

As for knockoff books--excellent. They'll provide my son something to read this doesn't involve him learning a dull moral lesson of some kind--just enjoying an adventure or learning skills and crafts so this 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 this you have removed the section on conkers, if only for the reason that 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 harm 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 do you weep, if I did this sort of thing, which I try not to. Reading Jane Austen is still allowed, however.

Amazon.com: What knowledge did you decide was important to add for American boys? I notice in together editions you have an outstanding and useful section on table football, as played together with coins. Is paper football strictly an American pastime? I'm not sure I could have gotten throughout the fourth grade not including it.

Iggulden: I like knowing the details of battles, so Gettysburg and the Alamo had to go in, along together with the Gettysburg address, stickball, state capitals, U.S. mountains, American trees, insects, U.S. historical timelines, and a lot of others. Navajo code talkers of WWII is a excellent chapter. It probably helps this I am a huge fan of America. It was only while rewriting for the U.S. this 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 mutually, people keep saying things like "You have rockets in there, yes? Everyone loves rockets!" Paper football is the first American one, but there will be many others. No book in the world is long enough to put them all in--unless we do a sequel, of course.

Amazon.com: Do you believe The Dangerous Book for Boys is being read by actual boys, or only by nostalgic adults? Have you seen boys getting up from their Xboxes to go outside and perform first aid or tan animal skins or build 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 children as young as ten and an old man of 87, who pointed out a problem together with the shadow stick this we've since changed. The thing to remember is this we may be older and extra cynical each year, but boys just aren't. If they are given the chance to do a go-cart together with their dad, they jump at it. Mine did. Nothing provides me extra pleasure than to recognize the book is being used together with fathers and sons mutually, trying things out. Nothing is extra valuable to a boy than time together with his dad, learning something fun--or something difficult. This's part of the attitude too. If it's hard, you don't do it simple, you grab it by the throat and hang on for as long as it takes.

The book is often purchased by fathers, of course. Their sons don't recognize Scott of the Antarctic is a excellent adventure story. How could they if it isn't taught any extra? Good, heroic stories don't be visible much in modern school curriculums--and then we wonder why boys don't seem interested.

Amazon.com: And finally, on to the important questions: Should Pluto still be a planet? And what was the excellent dinosaur?

Iggulden: Pluto is a planet. I recognize there are scientists who say it isn't, but it's big enough to be round and it has a moon, for crying out loud. Of course it's a planet. Provide it ten years and they'll be agreeing together with me again.

As for the excellent dinosaur, it depends what you indicate by excellent. 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 spectacular. I only hope humanity can do as well. The only thing this will stop us is worrying too much.