Books for girls chase after the boys
 

Books for girls chase after the boys

http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2007-06-18-girls-books_N.htm
http://tinyurl.com/ysm5ku

By Bob Minzesheimer, USA TODAY

The Dangerous Book for Boys, the most popular British import since
Harry Potter's debut, is inspiring similar low-tech manuals for girls.

· The Daring Book for Girls, to be published in October by Collins,
promises chapters on "Five karate moves every girl should know" and
"Famous women spies."

· The Girls' Book: How to Be the Best at Everything, out from
Scholastic Aug. 1, offers advice on making pom-poms and French braids.

· The Great Big Glorious Book for Girls, out in Britain next month but
so far without a U.S. publisher, promises to "take women back to a
time when we made cupcakes with our grandmothers, when girls weren't
obsessed with all things pink (and) didn't wear 'Hot to Trot' T-
shirts" at age 8.

All follow the The Dangerous Book for Boys by novelist Conn Iggulden
and his brother, theater director Hal Iggulden, who write: "In this
age of video games and cellphones, there must still be a place for
knots, tree houses, and stories of incredible courage."

A British best seller for a year, the American version is No. 8 on USA
TODAY's Best-Selling Books list with 635,000 copies in print. It is
being promoted as "the perfect book for every boy from 8 to 80."

Collins executive Margot Schupf says similar books are "inevitable.
Any success breeds copies."

It also raised the question, "What about girls?" although boys are a
tougher market for publishers.

Collins signed The Daring Book for Girls by U.S. authors Andrea
Buchanan (Mother Shock) and Miriam Peskowitz (The Truth Behind the
Mommy Wars) from several competing proposals.

Scholastic is rushing out U.S. versions of British best sellers The
Girls Book by Juliana Foster and The Boys Book by Dominique Enright
and Guy Macdonald. Publication dates have been moved up from September
to August.

Publisher Ellie Berger says the books overlap but cater to the
differences in boys' and girls' interests. For example, advice to boys
is: How to get out of quicksand. For girls: How to make your own
luxury bubble bath.

Such manuals strike "a chord among parents who have a nostalgic/retro
longing to share with their own kids the same kind of good, old-
fashioned creative play, both indoor and outdoor, that they grew up
doing."

Tom Dwyer, a book buyer for Borders, says The Dangerous Book for Boys
is "neither politically correct nor politically incorrect." He found
its advice about girls ("It is important to listen") "charming."

Its format is not new. The oversized B on the cover is copied from a
1904 manual, Boys Own, that belonged to the authors' father.