My dad sent me & my son this marvelous book for Christmas, the supreme attributes of which I feel I must pass on. One look inside, and it speaks volumes.
From the back cover:
[quote][color=blue]“Recapture Sunday afternoons & long summer days.
The perfect book for every boy from eight to eighty.” [/color][/quote]
And from that dedication page that’s usually inserted right before the Table of Contents (whatever that’s called in editease):
And it’s fuggin great advice:
[quote][color=darkblue]'Don’t worry about genius and don’t worry about not being clever. Trust rather to hard work, perseverance, and determination. The best motto for a long march is: “Don’t grumble. Plug on.”
‘You hold your future in your own hands. Never waver in this belief. Don’t swagger. The boy who swaggers - like the man who swaggers - has little else he can do. He is a cheap-Jack crying his own paltry wares. It is the empty tin that rattles most. Be honest. Be loyal. Be kind. Remember that the hardest thing to acquire is the faculty of being unselfish. As a quality it is one of the finest attributes of manliness.’
‘Love the sea, the ringing beach and the open downs.’
‘Keep clean, body and mind.’-[/color]
[color=black]Sir FREDERICK TREVES, 1903.[/color][/quote]
Sounds like me Grandad.
& they don’t make’em much liken that anymores, Ah reCKin…
Check it out, it’s a splendid work!
Intrinsic knowledge, something that we in our “modern” existence tend to forget. It was easier for our grandparents–in a way–because they had to contend with the essentials. We, on the other had are blindfolded by our wants and by what we think we need. Sometimes we need reminders, like"The Dangerous Book For Boys" to return to that simplicity because of the simple fact that we clutter our lives with so much unnecessary baggage.
Great book for a boy to grow up with.
That does sound like a great book for boys: paper airplanes, water baloons, tree forts, bows and arrows, etc. I’m tempted to buy it for my cousin.
How well suited would it be for an american, though? I noticed it also includes stuff about rugby, cricket and other oddities that might seem somewhat alien to him. Does such European content make up only a small part of the book, with most of it being devoted to more universal boy stuff?
I should have mentioned that this read is very heavy on the brit/commonwealth style.
Even the cover resonates with past brit books for lads in the Baden Powell pre WWI guppy style era.
Probably not to be recommended to an American audience. Only those over-exposed to the Commonwealth. Such as it was.
And there’s also not a lot of things in the book that one can perform well safely in this kuntry.
Makes me pine fer the wild open spaces.
Which I suppose is part of what the book tries to do.
It’s a well written book. Brings Nostalgia in to action.
Or something like that.
[quote=“TheGingerMan”]I should have mentioned that this read is very heavy on the brit/commonwelath style.
Even the cover resonates with past brit books for lads in the Baden Powell pre WWI guppy style era.[/quote]Great stuff! I used to have a 1920s copy of “Scouting for Boys”. Swapped it with my brother for something – can’t remember what. Hope he’s looking after it. I read it many times and still remember some of it. Modern audiences would find it quaint, though. You couldn’t tell a Scout troop about the game called “Bang the Bear” without a few smirks at least. And BP’s prescribed penalty for swearing was a mug of cold water down the sleeve.
I also used to have some old Eagle Annuals and an even older “Real Life Adventures” book with chapters on mountaineering, living among headhunters in Borneo, and the like.
there’s another one on amazon called “the boy’s book: how to be good at everything” or something like that. it’s preety cool. teachs you how to do the best cannon balls in the pool, how to make the bestest paper airplanes, etc.
