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Boy, Oh Boy, Have We Got Some Reads for You
Boy, Oh Boy, Have We Got Some Reads for You
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...le/2007/06/07/ AR2007060702055.html http://tinyurl.com/2ocmpt By Justin Ewers Special to The Washington Post Sunday, June 10, 2007; M05 Boys will be boys -- that is, clever but flatulent, dirty but funny, mostly lazy, occasionally heroic and, of course, totally fascinated with blowing things up. So say three new books, anyway, which aim to put their finger on that most elusive of manly skills: how to be a boy. Covering topics that will amuse boys of all ages (did we mention flatulence?), they may even be worth giving to Dad -- the oldest "boy" in the house -- on Father's Day. Less Danger, More Fun "The Dangerous Book for Boys" (Collins, $24.95) is a brazen effort by two British 30-somethings to inject the good old days back into boyhood. Call it a primer for a life of snips and snails and puppy dog tails. It has already had a surprising run to the top of Britain's bestseller list. Inside a faux-Victorian cover, brothers Conn and Hal Iggulden offer boys a guide for nearly every conceivable challenge, from making a go- cart to finding north in the dark. Brief history lessons on subjects near to boys' hearts -- the golden age of piracy, battles from Thermopylae to Gettysburg -- follow answers to boyhood's eternal questions: Where does cork come from? What's the world record for skippin g stones across a lake? (Thirty-eight skips, for any challengers.) Anticipating a backlash from those left out of the fun, the Igguldens concede that some girls may enjoy their book, too. "But as a general rule," they write, "girls do not get quite as excited by the use of urine as a secret ink as boys do." Fair point. Potential for destruction: C (How badly can you hurt yourself playing stickball?) Suitability for actual boys: A+ (Field test it with a 10-year-old. He'll love it.) The Invention Dimension There are nearly 7 million patents registered in the United States -- and let's hope they aren't all as outlandish as the 70 inventions featured in "It's a Guy Thing: Awesome Innovations From the Underdeveloped Male Mind" (Three Rivers, $13.95). From motorized pogo sticks to head-mounted kegs, Scott Seegert highlights some of the best "guy stuff" on file at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Even grown-up boys, in his cheerfully pessimistic analysis, are concerned mostly with finding new ways to shoot one another, with less effort, while drinking beer. Along with a portable automobile urinal, a high-five simulator and a bulletproof helmet, Seegert discovered designs for inflatable furniture that floats to the ceiling -- so the truly lazy gentleman doesn't have to make his bed. Then there is the .22-caliber golf club, complete with an exploding charge in the club head that prevents the ball from hooking or slicing. Seegert describes the device with a certain fatalism: "Guys like to shoot guns. Guys like to play golf. It only stands to reason that they would absolutely love anything that combined the two activities." Fore! Potential for destruction: A ("Bulletproof" helmets and motorized pogo sticks: 'nuff said.) Suitability for actual boys: D (Beer gadgets aren't for the underage.) Ready, Aim, Fire! "Science isn't just about blowing things up," a friend once told William Gurstelle, author of "Whoosh Boom Splat: The Garage Warrior's Guide to Building Projectile Shooters" (Three Rivers, $16.95). "Rather, it's about blowing things up and knowing how you did it." So begins a potentially frightening book devoted to the fine art of explosive-projectile flinging. Laden with step-by-step directions for constructing devices such as T- shirt cannons and miniature pulse jets, Shakespeare, it is not -- but that won't faze the fanatical and obsessed. Soliloquies on the best brand of PVC pipes abound, along with several stern warnings about safety. Gurstelle's potato cannon, after all, uses a stun gun ignition system to fling spuds more than a 100 yards. And that's one of his smaller projects. "You might believe that building a jet engine at home is beyond the means and capabilities of most hobbyists," Gurstelle writes. You would be wrong. A word to the wise: If a neighbor buys this book, take cover. Potential for destruction: A+ (Potato cannons and jet engines, c'mon!) Suitability for actual boys: D (Um, Mom would never approve.) Justin Ewers is a senior editor at U.S. News & World Report. |
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Boy, Oh Boy, Have We Got Some Reads for You
BTW, the book was mentioned at the end of the 6:30 national news last
night - but I've already forgotten which network it was. The piece included someone's saying that a few decades ago, it was common for boys to get their first jacknife at age 6 - and another scene of a boy reading aloud, from the book, the instructions for carving up a rabbit for cooking (after you've hunted it down personally, I presume). Lenona. |
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Boy, Oh Boy, Have We Got Some Reads for You
And check this out! http://reason.com/news/show/120879.html By Cathy Young. What's surprising is that Young is a well-known libertarian conservative who, when it comes to gender wars, tends to talk mainly in support of men's rights. On the rare occasions when she criticizes supporters of men's rights, they tend to be near-extremists like Dr. Laura. (After all, how hard is it to condemn DL's line from her "Proper Care & Feeding of Husbands" book "remember that without him, you are only a sorry excuse for a person"?) See here for review, if you like: http://www.reason.com/news/show/31881.html Excerpts from the former article: On blogs and Internet forums, readers complaining about the book's exclusionary message have been dismissed as angry feminist whiners; a standard rejoinder is that no one is stopping girls from reading it if they want. Yet my friend Dana, a graduate student who holds no brief for angry feminism or political correctness, shares the concerns about the gender-specific focus of The Dangerous Book. "I would have loved this book as a kid, and it really bugs me how people are saying 'this is such a great book for boys, and it's so wonderful that it's aimed at boys,'" she says. "Where is the book for girls who did stuff like make 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?" Dana is not convinced by the argument that girls can read the book too, given that it is geared so explicitly to boys. Indeed, the message to girls seems to be either "This stuff is not for you" or "You can enjoy this cool stuff if you want to be like the boys......." Partly in response to queries about a companion volume for girls, HarperCollins is now bringing The Daring Book for Girls, scheduled for publication in November. There's nothing wrong with having separate books aimed at girls and boys, each with a somewhat different focus. The trouble with The Dangerous Book for Boys is not that it seeks to restore the old-fashioned charms of adventurous boyhood but that it's being treated as a restoration of old-fashioned wisdom about boys and girls. The "free to be you and me" message of 1970s feminism was often naïve in its assumption that all differences between the sexes were the result of social conditioning. But it also had a liberating message of celebrating individuality. And it would be a shame to throw out that baby with the bathwater, at a time when girls and boys have more options open to them than ever. (end) Lenona. |
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Boy, Oh Boy, Have We Got Some Reads for You
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