Customer Reviews

The Field and Forest Handy Book (Dover Children's Activity Books)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I hardly know where to begin. Like the Boys' and Girls' Handybooks, this hefty little book is full of ideas from a bygone era. Written in 1906, the activities are not always the kind of things our kids can do today...but this is a book of IDEAS! While you might not want to camp in a swamp, this book will tell you how. That information might come in useful for another project someday. The book also has historical value--the vocabulary is sometimes quite dated--but that's part of the fun!

Other ideas from the book, which is organized by season: Kites, herbarium, quail farming, bird houses, cages, aquaria, carts, rafts, boats, camping, indoor ideas, outdoor cooking, sleds, packs, and so much more. Oh, and DO learn how to cook a muskrat!

Originally written 100 years ago, this delightful book shows you how to enjoy the Great Outdoors. Divided seasonally, the author shows you, via illustrations and diagrams, how to make kites, bird houses, aquariams, boats,sleds, moccasins, shirts, and various camping utensils. For the more adventurous, he shows you how to construct bridges, dams, piers and outdoor dwellings of different kinds. He also provides tips for camping out in your own backyard.
Dan Beard was one of the founders of the American Boy Scouts and an irresistibly cheerful, "can-do" attitide makes this book fun for the serious and armchair outdoorsperson alike.

My son read the covers off the first D. C. Beard book we got (The American Boys Handy Book) and I can tell this will swiftly suffer the same fate. Detailed instructions for dozens of projects... he can't put it down.

I got this for my 16 year old son. We recently moved from town to a very rural area, and he's been complaining there's nothing to do...so I got him this book and a tool kit. There's a lot of neat stuff to build, and useful survival information. I recommend this for older boys, and "Dangerous Book for Boys" for the younger set.

Excellent book for any outdoor explorer. Interesting for adults, too. Now our sons want his other books!

A fun read. Informative. Have been an outdoorsman for 40 years and I learned some new skills from this book.

Content is aimed primarily at youth of years-gone-by... I smiled plenty of times while reading it.

This book makes me think of the Little Rascals! It has great activities from a time that has all but disappeared. A time when kids played outside from sunup to sundown and created their own world of imaginative play. The only note of caution I would have is that many projects require materials that may not be readily available to kids in urban areas. On the other hand, it's a great opportunity to be creative in locating materials to reuse and recycle. This is a wonderful resource to get kids back outside and interested in using their own imaginations.

I own this and two other of Mr. Beard's books published by Godine, or Nonpareil Books. That publisher does a great job with it's format, the books are smaller and easy to take with you. This one's approx. 7.5 x 5.5 and almost an inch and a half thick. As I've said in another review, The more I learn about Mr. Beard the more I'm a fan. The last book I read of his, 'The American Boy's Handybook' was just great. Mr. Beard also illustrates the books himself. I think it's rare to see such a gifted outdoorsman / teacher etc. with such fine drawing skills. This book and his other ones are also a joy to read. His style is fun and lively and he must have been a character in person because his personality comes through in his writing. I believe he was a friend of another of America's wittier scribes as well, Mark Twain. Mr. Beards books don't suffer the same dry/booring fate of many other instructional tombs. I'll be buying these while they're still around, definitely recommended.

I bought this for my 14 year old and he spent hours planning and plotting. It really inspired his imagination

This is a great glimpse into old school fun and games. Back when most boys had bigger brass ones than most men do today. Many men of my generation have fathers that never took them camping or got them into the great outdoors. This book is from a time when boys didn't need the latest game console and a 55'" 1080p HDTV to enjoy themselves. When boys had to rely on their wits and ingenuity to entertain themselves. And yes, they did risk breaking their neck or drowning or hypothermia or snakebite. It still isn't a sterile world, no matter how much people have tried to make it so. But this book comes from a time when people recognized that the world was potentially dangerous, and accepted the risks in order to live free.

This book contains many projects and little practical detail. Boys are expected to use their brain (gasp! what? no detailed step-by-step? how will we cope?) to figure out the details. And if that fails, they were expected to come to their father or nearby father figure. And that is where this book really shines. As a father, I've sat down with my son, opened this book and looked through projects with him, offering suggestions or advice, sometimes helping out.

Now, beware, some of these projects are not suitable any longer. We no longer live in a world where a vast forest stretches from sea to shining sea, so some of these projects will be daydreams alone. But man, there's some awesome stuff in here. Buy it, grab your son (or little brother) sit down and figure out how to conquer your world.