My first review for MotherTalk!
The Daring Book for Girls,
by Andrea J. Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz
Several months ago I caught an interview with the author of The Dangerous Book for Boys on The Colbert Report. My reaction was mixed; on the one hand, I agree with his premise, that childhood these days is too managed, that parents can be protective of their kids to the point of paranoia, and that there are worse fates than breaking one’s arm from jumping off the roof of the car while wearing a Superman cape. Still, I found myself railing at the television, “Isn’t this all true for girls as well? Don’t girls also benefit from exploration and risk?”
Well, the gals have had their say with The Daring Book for Girls, which includes everything from rules for bowling, to building a campfire, to making a lemon-powered clock. (I am SO doing that with little she-who-is and the divine miss M.) It would be interesting to compare the two books. Glancing at the table of contents of the Boy book, there is definite overlap; both contain sections on first aid and knot-tying, and I’m sure there are other similarities.
I’m one of those parents who, while I think that we do our kids a disservice by heaping a bunch of gender expectations on them, I also think that boys and girls are, by and large, different. Yes, as we discussed in Sociology of Gender class, males and females are more similar than, say, males and palm trees (yes, some feminist scholar wrote that), but c’mon. The stereotypes exist for a reason. Case in point: a friend of mine, a Berkeley-educated feminist par excellence, gave her infant daughter a doll, and at 9 months, the child lifted her shirt and pretended to nurse it. Ever the enlightened mom, she also gave her son a doll, which he used as a hammer.
My point is, this book does a good job of honoring stereotypical “girl stuff,” with instructions on making daisy chains and putting your hair up with a pencil. The section on boys is charming and matter-of-fact. (Some girls think about boys a lot, some girls don’t; don’t feel like you have to change for a boy; if he doesn’t like you, that’s about him, not you.) And the piece on slumber party games was a personal favorite—I adored Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board as well as Bloody Mary as a kid.
But there are also sections that push girls to think and explore their world more widely. Who knew there were female pirates? And while I loved tether ball as a kid, it would have never occurred to me to build a tether-ball pole in my backyard. (OK, some of the stuff in the book requires grown-up assistance.) Although the introduction discusses the high-tech nature of contemporary childhood, the book is refreshingly devoid of this content. There are sections on writing a good letter and delivering a good speech, as opposed to improving your text-messaging and MySpace skills.
This is a book that Harriet M. Welsch would have loved the cover off of. There are instructions on building a fort or clubhouse, and if you want to be organized about what goes on within its walls, there’s a primer on Robert’s Rules of Order too. The practical how-tos are interspersed with historical snapshots of women from Joan of Arc to Zenobia, Queen of the East. My girls are a little young to implement most of the ideas in this book, but who knows? Maybe over the years, the book’s pages will become stained, with residue from a model volcano erupting, or from road grime after we change a tire together, or from melted snow as we make the perfect snowball.
This review is dedicated to Parker Chloe Gaskill-McKibben, who will be born any day now, and who will be receiving a copy of this book as soon as she arrives!
17 Responses to “the daring book for girls: a review”
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Asides
» I have been remiss in posting SBJ’s latest stats: 23 pounds and 27 inches at six months. Yes, I’ve got the big mama biceps.
» Aaaaaand little she-who-is lost another tooth this week!
» SBJ is four months old, 19 pounds 5 ounces, and 26 inches tall. GIGANTOR!
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Are these books meant for the child to read or for the parents? Or both? How old do they recommend for the child to read it?
Ah, good point—I didn’t make that clear.
An upper-elementary child could read it herself. Many of the articles/suggestions would be appropriate for a child who was younger than that, but some of them are geared more to slightly older girls.
My son loved the DBFB–paid enough in library fines that we should have just gone ahead and bought the damn thing. Will have to put DBFG on reserve . . .
I’m putting this on my daughter’s (age 12) Christmas list. She’ll love the descriptions of historical figures, and she loves “how-to” types of books. Sounds like just the thing.
As for boys and girls being different… yah… lol. My son is my older one — when he was young I bought him a toy broom (ever the enlightened mom, as you said). That toy broom was always in time-out on top of the bookshelf for being a sword, a bat, a “poker”, etc. Then my daughter came along and I gave her a toy broom. Hers was always well-behaved and lived in the kitchen next to the regular broom. In fact she called them “Mommy Broom” and “Baby Broom”. lol…
Oh, and p.s. — how come all this time I’ve been thinking that BB was a boy? Clearly I haven’t been paying attention.
He is!
I have two girls. So I actually have an excuse to have both books.
Lol…okay, I get it… the baby who your book review is dedicated to is not yours. I did kind of wonder why you put the baby’s name there when you are always so careful not to name the other two.
anyway, lol at me.. and, glad to know I *have* been paying attention.
Last year in our high school our daughter was (the only freshman) invited to play “Assassins” - a name I hate - but it’s essentially tag with a sock ball. There are weekly “safeties” (wear a duct tape bracelet, keep hands in pockets) that mean no sock ball can kill you. Participants put $ in and the last one standing gets the $. Each person is assigned someone and after you get them, you move on to try to get the person that person had. (Make sense?)
Daughter was chosen to play because the organizers believed having her in the game would make it easier to “kill” her two brothers. What really happened: boys killed in first weeks; daughter in final 8 players. (She was so competitive that this year she is back in the game and everyone’s afraid of her - in the good way.)
Daughter has never liked dolls or been girly - but she loves clothes, hair, shopping, etc. I love that she is adventurous (”N. and I are going to backpack through Europe the summer between high school graduation and college.”) I love that she has a strong body (ten years of soccer).
She also told me yesterday that the reason she doesn’t babysit for the family across the street is because she and the twin 3 year old boys were playing dress up with their sisters’ dress up costumes, Dad came home, and accused our daughter or influencing the boys to be homosexual. I AM NOT KIDDING.
My hope is that these “Dangerous Books” are not about that kind of thing (a fearful “prevention” of girly boys or boylike girls - as if we can control such things.) Sorry to be so wordy.
Thanks for this! Katie is DEFINITELY getting this for Christmas.
Oh, I’m thrilled with this! I bought the Dangerous Book for Boys the instant I saw it…in an airport no less…because I was so enthralled and knew my 12 year old nephew needed it.
At the same time, my niece received a set of Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quintet. She was happy to get stories, but wanted to SEE THAT COOL BOOK! So, now her Christmas is all set!
Harriet the Spy was one of my favorite books (yes, I got it when it first came out); my sister and I named one of our cats after Harriet b/c she was so inquisitive and into things! Have not read these books - have seen both - they intrigue me. As one who was in Girl Scouts thru senior year of HS and who has parents who evidently encouraged a wide variety of activites, and who sons were in Scouts (into middle or high school, ditto on activites) it seems as if we were exposed to most of the things in both books (according to Table of Contents) in the course of our lives - and we still use the skills at our different ages and stages of life (sons in their 20’s, me in my 50’s).
Books like this make me think about how families/parents pass things on to their children that they deem important, and seek out resources to add/build upon info that they lack. Seems like these books are good resources for this!
Ah yes Lorraine—that little impending arrival is another special baby in my life, but not my own.
JLE, that was my concern about the boy book, and what had me railing at the TV set when the author was on Colbert—there was this undertone of “women have ruined everything; boys can’t be boys anymore,” and I assumed that’s what the book was about. Whereas it’s really just about fun activities like spitballs and paper airplanes.
At any rate, I can say for sure that the girl book is not about preventing “boylike girls”—if anything it encourages girls to break the traditional girly mold. There are sections on “cool math tricks” and the periodic table of elements—two areas that girls have not traditionally excelled in. But there’s also stuff on writing and speaking. It’s quite balanced.
Sarah, the book reminded me a lot of the girl scout handbook, just less… doctrinal? Not that girl scouts are all that doctrinal, but they do have the badges and the advancement and stuff, though not as much as the boy scouts do. This book feels much more about freedom to explore and try things independent of a “program.”
Boys are different from other boys (as evidenced by me observing non-identical twin boys) and girls different from other girls; but there really do seem to be some differences in approach between boys and girls. This was really obvious when my friend brought out her granddaughter’s Barbie car, nice and pink, for my little 2 1/2-year-old grandsons. In no time flat, that car was being pushed as fast as they could manage around a track they imagined around the kitchen island. It had never seen such speed!
I, also, was going to say it sounds like the GS handbook. man, that book rocks. Thaks for the reference to harriet the spy. I think one of my nieces is going to get Harriet and one will get Daring Book for Christmas. I’d almost forgotten about Harriet the spy. I loved her.
Me too!!! Loved her.
Found her story much more poignant when I reread recently—the loss of Ole Golly and being ostracized by her peers. Wow.
i sent this recommendation to a couple of people who have daughters that i think will love this book. they were pretty excited.