Comments on: Remembering “The Dangerous Book for Boys”

By: Lefroy

Lefroy — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 21:42:29 +0000

And “Horace Wells” makes my point. Kimball is without “insight” and given over to “fretting over gays and peaceniks” (I must have missed those articles), but Horace is driven back here, tormented by the existence of points of view other than his own.

By: Pojkaktigheten och dess förlorade konstarter « Kaffepaus

Pojkaktigheten och dess förlorade konstarter « Kaffepaus — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 14:31:25 +0000

[...] Från Roger Kimball. [...]

By: Tom G.

Tom G. — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 03:18:14 +0000

Hehe..at the risk of being excoriated, any one who calls their brand new precious gift a “baby woman” are retards.

By: Horace Wells

Horace Wells — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 03:05:49 +0000

I’m sure someone else could write a book about the hyper masculinization of society, with Xtreme sports, martial arts studios on every block, lots of violence in our schools, graphic violence in the media and tattoed head hunter looking wretches everywhere. Face it, it’s a big world and for every Emo wannabee there is some gangsta wannabe. No insight here as usual from Roger, just more of the right’s usual fretting over gays and peaceniks.

By: Roy M

Roy M — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 14:27:52 +0000

Baseball bats and balls banned in schools? Show me.

Metal bats maybe.

By: Bleepless

Bleepless — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 03:28:27 +0000

Banned in Seattle public schools: baseballs, footballs, baseball bats, seesaws. Thanks a lot, Trial Lawyers’ Association.

By: Lefroy

Lefroy — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 02:04:41 +0000

I seem to recall that in the English edition there are parts devoted to subjects like national heroes, the kings and queens of England and so on. I assume there are equivalent bits in the American edition. Delicious!! Wonderful! Together with knives, skinning rabbits and climbing trees, it must send the chattering classes into ORBIT!

By: The Dangerous Book for Boys

The Dangerous Book for Boys — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 02:04:14 +0000

[...] not going to belabor this point too much, and several other writers (Roger Kimball for one), have written about the feminization of boys in today’s society (which I think [...]

By: DavidN

DavidN — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 02:02:21 +0000

I worked in a bookstore at the time The Dangerous Book for Boys was released. It was the sense of everyone in the book business that I talked to that it was a very well-conceived book. There are a number of other books of a similar nature on the shelf available. One of my favorites was called “Backyard Ballistics”. It includes instructions on making such things as potato cannons and water rockets. But back to the Igguldon brothers’ book.

Books for children are marketed unusually. It’s typical that you market the book to the end-user, but in the case of childrens’ books, that’s not the case. You market to the *parents*, or perhaps grandparents. That’s where The Dangerous Book for Boys was so brilliant. It included a number of things that were sure to attract nostalgic memories from the prospective buyer, who is looking to purchase one of these books for their sons or grandsons. The retro cover reminds older adults, especially males, of their own childhoods, and the positive parts of that experience. The whole thing was brilliantly packaged and marketed, and it sold like hotcakes.

Interestingly, the Daring Book for Girls, which was designed to be a pretty close to complete counterpart, did nowhere near as well in sales. I don’t have any figures, but anecdotally, the book didn’t move anywhere near as well, didn’t generate the buzz, and just didn’t do as much. Just the other day I was in my local Borders. They had to copies of the Dangerous Book for Boys on the wall behind the register, and only one copy of The Daring Book for Girls. You might think that means they had sold all of the latter, but the more likely answer is that they ordered fewer of them in the first place.

And as a side-note, there was a wonderful parody of The Dangerous Book for Boys this last Christmas season. It’s called The Dangerous Book for Dogs. Instead of synopses of Napoleon’s battles, it includes synopses of legendary dog battles with man (complete with maps) including one with a Mailman, and another with a patch of light on the kitchen counter. It has short bios of various famous dogs in history, including the dogs who trained Dr. Pavlov to give them treats whenever they salivated after hearing the bells in the laboratory. While the book is smaller, the cover looks very similar to the book it’s parodying, and it’s quite fun.

By: Dave Hardy

Dave Hardy — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 01:01:27 +0000

First .22 at age 8, first centerfire rifle at 16, reloading for it same year. Mixed homemade gunpowder at 10, first homemade rockets at 14. In high school a close friend and I became president and VP of the science club, which gave us access to the lab after school. They may never have figured where all the nitric acid was going to. We only dabbled with high explosive now and then. Today he’s an MD and I’m a JD.