The Dangerous Book for Boys: Summary and book reviews of The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn Iggulden, plus links to an excerpt from The Dangerous Book for Boys and a biography of Conn Iggulden.
The bestselling book for every boy from eight to eighty, covering essential 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 with girls is.
In this digital age there is still a place for knots, skimming stones and stories of incredible courage. This book recaptures Sunday afternoons, stimulates curiosity, and makes for great father-son activities. The brothers Conn and Hal have put together a wonderful collection of all things that make being young or young at heart fun—building go-carts and electromagnets, identifying insects and spiders, and flying the world's best paper airplanes.
The completely revised American Edition includes:
The Greatest Paper Airplane in the World
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
The Five Knots Every Boy Should Know
Stickball
Slingshots
Fossils
Building a Treehouse
Making a Bow and Arrow
Fishing (revised with US Fish)
Timers and Tripwires
Baseball's "Most Valuable Players"
Famous Battles-Including 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
The Iggulden brothers open a window to an almost lost world where skinned knees are an acceptable risk in the pursuit of adventure; where tying devious knots, deciphering enemy code and making water bombs are more interesting than computer screens; where the rough-and-tumble of being a boy is not a health hazard but a necessary part of growing up; and where over-protectedness is a greater danger than a penknife. (Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Daily Telegraph (UK)
The perfect handbook for boys and dads.
The Times (London)
An old-fashioned compendium of information on items such as making catapults and knot-tying…the end of the PlayStation may have been signalled.
The New York Post - Christina Hoff Sommers
The sad lesson of this book's success is how far our current education culture has drifted from the world of boys. The special art of teaching boys - once so well understood by educators everywhere - is at risk of being lost forever.
School Library Journal
Both premise and content should appeal to many boys, and might be even more successful when nostalgic dads join in.
Time Out (UK)
If you want to know how to make crystals, master NATO's phonetic alphabet...and build a workbench, look no further.
Daily Mail (UK)
Just William would be proud. A new book teaching boys old-fashioned risky pursuits...has become a surprise bestseller.
Conn Iggulden was born in 1971. He read English at London
University and then taught for seven years at a high school in London. His
mother is Irish and from an early age told her children history as an exciting
series of stories - with dates, and his great-grandfather was a Seannachie
(Irish storyteller). His father flew in Bomber
Command in WWII, then taught maths and science. Iggulden says, "Though it seems a dated idea now, I began
teaching when boys were told only girls were good at English, despite the great
names that must spring to mind after that statement. My father loved working
with wood and equations, but he also recited Vitai Lampada* with a gleam in his
eye and that matters, frankly."
*A poem by Henry Newbolt.
Conn cut his teeth on Hornblower and Tai-Pan, Flashman, Sharpe and Jack Aubrey,
and still remembers the sheer joy of reading his first Patrick O’Brian book and discovering there were
nineteen more in the series! He also loves anything by David Gemmell, or...
Teen spy Alex Rider survives a bullfight, a high-speed bicycle chase through Amsterdam, and even being the target in a human video-game, in order to save the world - again.
A brilliantly crafted tale that reveals the unknown story of a boy who grew up to become one the most iconic figures of our time.
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