This book sounds like grand fun, although some disagree.
"The sort of fun promoted has also raised eyebrows. In a society that is preoccupied with safety, The Dangerous Book promotes activities in which boys are likely to get scuffed. This is a book for tree-climbers who occasionally pause to decipher enemy code or erupt into wood-wielding pirate fights.
The story asks: "Why would the Iggulden brothers imperil children?"
And answers:
"Clearly they do not think the rough-and-tumble of boyhood constitutes a health hazard. Perhaps they agree with parents who view over-protectiveness to be a greater danger, who wish to stir the imagination and muscles of their children instead.
"But the brothers wish to achieve more than this. In a world where children are isolated behind computer screens and iPods, they wish to establish a niche for old-fashioned childhood".
And I suspect I know a few girls here and there who might enjoy it too...
3 comments:
Ah, you have broached my eternal questions;
Am I here or there?
And why am I so inordinately proud of myself when I manage to decipher the disable code for verification?
It's great news that such a book is a top seller at Amazon, but I'm perplexed as always that some "critics" are picking on the authors for separating boys' play from girls' play.
I have never understood why people who purport to support "equality" of the sexes would have us girls lumped in with boys. Ew. I like being a girl. I personally feel that I don't WANT to be equal with boys, as that would be a step down (grin here - though at some level it's true - )
Girls play outdoors, too, but in different ways. When we played, it was running amok to be sure but we built makebelieve houses so we could play house, we raced our bikes but pretended they were horses, we played with Barbies by staging mock flash-flood disasters when dad back-flushed the swimming pool, and we played at cooking, too.
It's the same but different - because we-are-different-from-boys!
I still play outside - I like to hunt and shoot and hike and I love my truck - but next day I'm just as happy dressing to the 9's and sipping martinis at the AZ Inn, and a gorgeous pair of Manahlo Blaniks will turn my head as fast as a Land Cruiser Troopie.
Let's just let boys be boys and girls be girls, I say, and celebrate the great qualities - and differences - of both.
And thank goodness for this book. We should write one for girls, too.
The kids, boys and girls, who read this will become adults who explore deep space, deep seas, and other areas requiring risk. We need these people.
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