Infinite Monkeys

In Praise of the Dangerous Book for Boys

I first spotted it at Target last month, and I thought, "What the hell is this?" The book is filled with stories and diagrams and wonderful illustrations. It's a how-to guide to adventure. "I remember this!" I thought. And so I bought "A Dangerous Book for Boys," because I have a boy of my own and these sorts of instruction book come in handy. I didn't realize until a few days after I bought the book how much discussion it had generated.

Conn Iggulden, one of the brothers who co-wrote what is fast becoming the publishing phenomenon of the year, justifies himself in today's Washington Post. This paragraph resonated with me:

Finally, we chose our title -- "The Dangerous Book for Boys." It's about remembering a time when danger wasn't a dirty word. It's safer to put a boy in front of a PlayStation for a while, but not in the long run. The irony of making boys' lives too safe is that later they take worse risks on their own. You only have to push a baby boy hard on a swing and see his face light up. It's not learned behavior -- he's hardwired to enjoy a little risk. Ask any man for a good memory from childhood and he'll tell you about testing his courage or getting injured. No one wants to see a child get hurt, but we really did think the bumps and scratches were badges of honor, once.

That strikes me as entirely sound, although I regarded the bump I received on my forehead from a baseball my father threw one chilly Saturday morning not so much a badge of honor as a reason to quit T-ball.

Now, Cathy Young of Reason has some trenchant criticisms about the Dangerous Book. As Young notes,

Less attention has been paid to the boys who are not particularly into "boy things," who may be more interested in reading than in catching snails and may prefer art to stories of battles. The fact is that for both girls and boys, biologically based gender differences—which some feminists have been far too dogmatic in denying—are considerably attenuated by individual differences. Moreover, gender-neutral educators notwithstanding, social pressure to conform to "appropriate" norms and interests remains a reality.

Fair enough, I suppose. And I've met more than a few girls who made "their own chain mail as kids, or cracked rocks with sledgehammers in the driveway both to see what was inside them and to see if you could get sparks," though they are a rare enough breed. Young loses me at the end with her oversimplification of what the feminist ethos of the 1970s delivered. That "liberating message of celebrating individuality" lasted about five minutes before solipsism, atomism and narcissism took over. Insofar as books such as the Igguldens' offer an antidote, I'll gladly take the bad with the good.

Posted by H.L. Monkey at June 24, 2007 09:22 AM