Boy Howdy: The Boys' Book of Adventure

It's the sad part of the summer, after my sons have flown off to visit foreign climes with their dad but before I zip off on my solo adventures of the year, so it's just me and the cats wandering around looking for people to pester. Well, I could always go pester my niblings, and they have actually been in and out of my house all day, but why let the truth get in the way of a misery story?

So I celebrated by doing all the things I can't do when the boys are around, starting with reading Forbidden Books. The first one luckily came from the top of my TBR stack: The Boys Books of Adventure: Are You Up to the Challenge? which is by Steve Martin. I'm pretty sure not that Steve Martin, though. Apparently I don't have the required stones to read this book, but I'm a rebel so I soldiered on.

Sadly, I unlocked no secrets of the universe. I'm not sure why hammock building, shipwreck swimming survival tips, and rope climbing are considered skills only for young males, but I now also have the scarey mystery instructions for these events. Er, Yay?

Actually, it was a fairly cute book of how-to sections, usually tied in with some adventure hook, then some safety-backpedalling ("have your parents check your hammock before you get in, and never hang it higher than three feet"), but usually some fairly reliable hints on how to do fun stuff -- white water rafting, snake charming, grave robbing ("but turn in all artifacts to the country's authorities!") and such. The short chapters and confident writing should appeal to even reluctant readers, especially if they are male and enjoy the implicit ego-stroking, or female and enjoy the implicit transgression of reading the wrong book.