The American Boy's Handy Book [Hardcover]

Daniel C. Beard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 2008 | Age Level: 8 and up | Grade Level: 3 and up

Long before a "dangerous" book was all the rage there was The American Boy's Handy Book by Daniel Beard, a beloved classic for generations of youngsters. Specially designed to provide loads of ideas for adventures and games both indoors and outdoors during each season of the year, The American Boy's Handy Book was originally published in 1882 and became an instant bestseller.

Now, Tuttle Publishing is bringing this much-loved book back for a new generation of boys to enjoy. If you're not too young to fly a kite or too old to enjoy a day fishing, The American Boy's Handy Book is chock full of fun activities intended just for you! There's something for every day of the year: making an aquarium, rigging and sailing small boats, camping without a tent, making a cornstalk fiddle, trapping, building a snow fort, and of course tons of other games and crafts, too.

Daniel Beard firmly believed in letting boys make their own playthings, encouraging them to value their own hard work and gain the skills needed throughout life to successfully invent, construct and dream. In this world of instant gratification with ever-younger generations coveting the ubiquitous cell phones, computers and iPods, it seems as though the imagination and sense of adventure that permeated our country's past have all but disappeared. Welcome back the joys of childhood with The American Boy's Handy Book, and prepare to make old favorites new again!

Editorial Reviews

Review

If Huckleberry Finn were to settle down, somewhere out there in the territory, and decide to become an author, he might very well come up with a book like this one . . . evoking the kind of boyhood that nearly every American man would like to have had himself, and hope that his son (or daughter) might still enjoy. --Washington Post Book World<br /><br />Today you can be privy to all these splendid secrets . . . printed on acid-free paper and sewn in signatures, it will last to be handed down to you great-grandboys. --Henry Kisor, The Chicago Sun-Times<br /><br />Today you can be privy to all these splendid secrets . . . printed on acid-free paper and sewn in signatures, it will last to be handed down to you great-grandboys. --Henry Kisor, The Chicago Sun-Times

Today you can be privy to all these splendid secrets . . . printed on acid-free paper and sewn in signatures, it will last to be handed down to you great-grandboys. --Henry Kisor, The Chicago Sun-Times --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Daniel Beard was born in 1850 and lived most of his life in Kentucky. From an early age Beard decided to devote his life to American boyhood. He was a prolific writer and illustrator and the founder of two different societies for boys, as well as one of the founders of the Boy Scouts of America. Before his death in 1941, Beard received the only Golden Eagle badge ever awarded by the Boy Scouts of America, and the mountain peak adjoining Mount McKinley in Alaska was named in his honor.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Tuttle Publishing; Hardcover with Jacket edition (September 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804839956
• ISBN-13: 978-0804839952
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #229,709 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #19 in Books > Children's Books > Sports & Games > Camping

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

78 of 79 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Book for Boys (and Girls)!, February 16, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The American Boy's Handy Book: What to Do and How to Do It, Centennial Edition (Paperback)

I had a copy of this as a kid and read and re-read it to the point that the cover was more tape than original material. A wonderful guide to doing things yourself, and a welcome antidote to today's passive consumer paradigm of childhood. A fair number of the materials called for are hard if not impossible to find today, but the spirit of adaptation and improvisation that imbues this book will inspire the reader to find substitutes. Some parents may suspect the fair number of projectile- launching devices described, but the book is infinitely less violent than most child-oriented television shows and never fails to stress safety. My friends and I learned a lot of practical mechanics and crafting skills, developed our hand-eye coordination, and never shot anything more fragile than a plastic figure. We did a heck of a lot more damage to each other and our environment playing soccer and broomstick polo. My own future children will unquestionably have a copy of _The American Boy's Handy Book_ when they're old enough.

72 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars retro fun for active kids, August 24, 2004

By 

audrey (white mtns) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The American Boy's Handy Book: What to Do and How to Do It, Centennial Edition (Paperback)

Filled with black & white illustrations and schematics, this guide for American boys, originally published in 1882, is organized by season and is chock-full of instructions, suggestions and advice about kites, fishing, knots, telescopes, tents, soap bubbles, animals, snowball warfare, puppets, kaleidoscopes, whirligigs, costumes, decoys--even fireworks!! The emphasis is on building things yourself, and to that end it is an extremely valuable handbook for our increasingly passive society. There are definitely things here that will give you pause or that are culturally dated -- like making a blow gun, trapping and raising wild animals and taxidermy at home -- but that is where parenting comes in, and all-in-all I would say this is a valuable and exciting book for kids, filled with pragmatic insights and a fun historical document as well. Snowball war, anyone?

52 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great, highly recommended!, May 19, 2005

By 

Kurt A. Johnson (North-Central Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The American Boy's Handy Book: What to Do and How to Do It (Paperback)

This book was originally published in New York City, in 1890. It is the work of Daniel Carter Beard (1850-1941), a fun-loving boy-at-heart, who organized a boy's organization (the Society of the Sons of Daniel Boone) and was later instrumental in the establishment of the Boy Scouts of America. This book is a wonderful collection of projects that a boy can make, everything from kite making and fishing to tying knots and camping. Sound familiar?

Overall, I found the projects to be quite interesting. Some of them are a little out of step with modern sensibilities, such as putting broken glass onto kites to make "war kites," or making blowguns. But, that said, this is a great book with a lot of interesting projects, one that I am very glad that I got. So, if you have a young boy, and are interested in Scouting, or just plum making things, then this book is for you. My son and I highly recommend it to you!