The Great Big Glorious Big for Girls by Rosemary Vine and Sarah Davidson.
I almost bought this as a Christmas present for someone while at Dymocks yesterday. The girl’s version of the Dangerous Book for Boys, it’s full of great things to do with your daughter, like making daisy chains, baking cakes, having tea parties, sewing your own cushions. I would love to share it with my little girl one day (God willing).
But just in case you’re not a sugar-and-spice kind of girl who goes to gingerbread nights, there’s also a tomboy version:
The Daring Book for Girls by Andrea Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz, complete with karate moves and science projects.
It’s interesting that while the girl versions catered for both the outdoor/indoor kind of girl, there was no version for the boy who likes to stay at home, read books and draw. Society can readily accept girls being whoever they choose, but for boys, the macho/mummy’s boy stereotypes are still rife.
On the contrary…
The Dangerous Book for Boys contains both outdoors and indoors stuff. There is a huge list of books that “every boy should read”. There are five poems that he suggests boys learn by heart. There are coin tricks. A whole page devoted to the joys of role-playing games (after reading which, I went out and bought Dungeons & Dragons for my boys).
There are also lots of stories to read about famous battles and explorers etc. I think it’s quite balanced. Admittedly the author wanted to encourage boys to get out – but I think that’s because he feels modern boys spend too much time indoors playing the PS2. Probably a reasonable assessment!
my apologies then. That sounds great. I wonder why there are two girl versions?
lol – I don’t know that an apology was warranted…
They are from two different publishers – I expect they are in competition. On the write-ups you linked, both claim to be for both “girly-girls” and “tom-boys”.
Hey
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