The Double-Daring Book for Girls

How can you not like a book that tells you how to dye your hair with Kool-Aid, how to make a lava lamp, how to perform a Japanese Tea Ceremony, what the meaning of courage is, how to catch a fish, how to run a magazine, how to be a private eye, how to become President of the United States, all about the Underground Railroad, how to dance the Cotton-Eyed Joe, how to shoot pool, how to say no (and how to say yes), and -- for pete's sake -- how to run away and join the circus. And that's less than 10% of the topics in the book. The information in here is terribly important, it is positively invaluable lore and instruction. I defy anyone to pick up this book and tell me that they made it through reading the Table of Contents without smiling, reminiscing, and also being intrigued. It's a seemingly random collection of really neat stuff that you find you are thrilled someone had the time, energy and brains to actually document. It's the stuff that's told around the campfires, discussed over dinner tables, and taught over sidewalk chalk in the driveway. Get it for your daughter, get it for your niece, or get it for yourself. It makes a wonderful addition to any girl's book collection, and when you give it was a gift, you will know that you've struck gold.

Honestly, I want to hand this book to every girl I know, and the boys as well (pink typeface and Girl label be damned, this book is a powder keg of information and ideas for any kid). I am pleased that it covers so many topics I want my kids to know well, e.g., batik techniques and history (p.99), commonly confused words like imply and infer (p. 141), and the specifics of quality private eye work (p. 177). What I truly appreciate, and what makes the Daring books transcend the How To label, is the activities' historical and often rebellious context. Why should our kids want to know how to waltz (p. 78)? How about because it was considered scandalous -- the dancing partners touched! And vulgar, forbidden -- it was easy to learn and didn't require a dance master! Mostly, I am dazzled by the amount of good, hard, enticingly written information amassed in the Double Daring book. I want kids to know everything in it. I want them all to know exactly who Eleanor of Aquitaine was, and how startling her long, accomplished, independent life was compared to most women of her era. I want them to know the fundamentals of rhetoric, how to make a raft, the story of Ada Lovelace, how to join the circus, how to say thank you in scores of languages, how to make snowglobes, how to conduct an orchestra, and how to make rope ladders. The Double Daring book is buoyed by positivity, and focuses on cultivating competence, independence, willingness to experiment, and open-ended fun. It provides multiple short biographies of women whose lives exemplified these attitudes. These role models are an antidote to heavily-marketed (and in some cases marketing-originated) books like The Clique series, which my daughter and her friends crave, and in which junior high-aged girls live lives of insecurity, negativity, and cruelty, while obsessing about label-spangled fashion, unrealistic body images, and social machinations. Ptui. If you want your girls to value knowledge and abilities like they do store-bought items, get them The Double Daring Book for Girls. I truly believe it has the power to inspire and edify any child with a curious mind, while simultaneously countering media-induced materialism. It is a treasure.

What can we learn from this? Teach your girls how to play pool early (page 194 in The Double Daring Book for Girls), so they can hone their skills and put the other suburban moms to shame someday. Check out the Daring Book for Girls web site for more info on these truly fun and uncommonly intellectually stimulating books. I'm going to get back to boning up on my two-letter Scrabble words (page 34) before my daughter and I review what to do if we're caught in quicksand (page 83) and she figures out the steps to take to become President of the United States of America (page 153). http://jugglinglife.typepad.com/juggling_life/2009/05/i-double-dog-dare-you.html

Rarely does a book come along that makes me wish I were a kid again. This book by Andrea J. Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz does just that. I absolutely loved The Double-Daring Book for Girls. Chock full of daring information, ideas and stories, this beautiful hardback would have occupied me for at least a whole summer when I was a kid. From "How to Paint a Room" to "Putting on a Show" to making your own "Worry Dolls," I would have disappeared into the daring world of ideas and instructions for putting those ideas into action. I am thrilled that my six-year old daughter will have access to this book. It's just the antidote to video games that we need in our family.