Learning About Navigation, Knots and Juggling From “The Dangerous Book for Boys”

I mentioned recently that I’m currently reading
The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn and Hal Iggulden.

I’ve been trying to teach my older boys about compass basics: North - South - East - West. They have toy compasses, but of course the friggin things all point in different directions.

I generally have a good sense of direction based on the son. But it’s hard to teach my kids that.

We learned a few new tricks from the book. One of which was to set up a Shadow Stick. With a three foot stick, a bit of geometry and fifteen minutes to spare, you can determine which way is North. Pretty cool.

It is wise to never depart on a journey without knowing how to tie a good knot. I’ve always had a hard time remembering the best ones. It’s scary to think of the scores of trips home from the Home Depot with tons of lumber on the Dadster’s roof, all held by my shabby knots. The book illustrates five classic knots for a variety of uses. Well worth checking out.

On any journey, one must find ways to entertain the body and mind. That’s where the juggling lessions came in handy. My kids liked that part. In fact it got out of control with the younger ones flinging balls everywhere. My advice, take it outside.

We’re struggled with finding balls the right size for small hands. We tried wiffle balls and tennis balls and I have no idea where to buy bean bags. But the Iggulden brothers had a great suggestion how to make your own juggling balls with balloon and rice or flour. You could probably use sand as well.

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Full Disclosure: The folks at Harper Collins had contacted me to ask if I’d be interested in checking out the book. I am not being paid for this. My comments and opinions are my own as a courtesy for receiving a copy of the book.

Learning About Military Strategy From “The Dangerous Book for Boys”

I mentioned recently that I’m currently reading
The Dangerous Book for Boysby Conn and Hal Iggulden.

It’s going well. I was going page-by-page, but the structure of the book allows for skipping around. Artillary, famous battles and military strategy/tactics are subjects I couldn’t resist skipping ahead to read.

I was impressed with the summaries of historic battles ranging from ancient Greecian and Roman to Waterloo and The Alamo. There’s a lot of info I don’t think I’ve heard before. For example, I had seen the Michael Caine movie Zulu before, but the book explained for me the background story of Rorke’s Drift. Illustrations or maps accompany each battle covered.

As a man, of course I like to blow stuff up. I watch Mythbusters religiously. Well, the Iggulden brothers cover artillery and weapons too. They’ve included really good instructions on how to make a bow and arrow, including how to nap arrow heads from flint.

Among artillery subjects is the The Trebuchet — my all-time favorite machine of war. Fortunately now-a-days it’s used for hurling objects and small cars great distances. I love watching videos of these home-built engines of insanity. I really wish the book had some detailed instructions on building a Trebuchet to scale.

These topics were cool for me, but my eight year olds didn’t seem to be interested at this time. They don’t realize yet that they take these real examples and break down how to use them for next winter’s snow forts and snowball fights.
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Full Disclosure: The folks at Harper Collins had contacted me to ask if I’d be interested in checking out the book. I am not being paid for this. My comments and opinions are my own as a courtesy for receiving a copy of the book.

The Dangerous Book for Boys - Promotional Video

I’ve been reading The Dangerous Book for Boys.

Check out this video they posted on YouTube:

Full Disclosure: The folks at Harper Collins had contacted me to ask if I’d be interested in checking out the book. So far I’ve been enjoying it. I’ll post my review when done.