Boyhood Basics

EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW, I LEARNED FROM CONN

Before Conn Iggulden and his younger brother, Hal, dropped a literary cherry bomb called The Dangerous Book for Boys on Britain's parenting class last June, Conn was known mainly as the acclaimed, best-selling author of the "Emperor" series of historical novels, about Julius Caesar. Hal was director of the Holdfast Theatre Company, in Leicester, England. But during the first half of 2005, the brothers got together at Conn's Hertfordshire home to relive their childhood by carving arrowheads from chunks of flint, reviving old coin tricks, and, occasionally, having it out with each other. "My brother did describe me as 'control-freak stress monkey' at one point," Conn says.

The book that the Igguldens produced was not a memoir of their youth in the analog 70s and 80s but a testosterone-fueled throwback of a field guide, a compendium, as Conn describes it, of "everything we'd ever been interested in as kids," plus a few things the brothers thought were important now that they were adults. Along with tutorials on how to fold a paper airplane, build a go-cart, study the heavens, and construct a homemade battery, the Igguldens layered in guides to proper English usage and Shakespearean quotes, and a series of "Extraordinary Stories," such as one on the exploits of World War II R. A.F. fighter ace Douglas Bader, who racked up the fifth-highest number of kills in the Royal Air Force despite his flying with prosthetic legs.

None of the activities involve a computer, but because some of them require power tools, penknives, and—in the case of a procedural on rabbit-hunting—an air rifle and entrail work, Conn, 36, who has three children of his own, says he and Hal, 34, were prepared for some backlash. The outcry never came. Instead, as of March, The Dangerous Book for Boys had spent 38 weeks on the London Times best-seller list, 12 of them in the No. 1 spot, and had been short-listed for the Galaxy British Book Awards' Book of the Year. And this month will see the release of an American version. In are the Battle of Gettysburg and stickball; out, the history of the British Empire and cricket. But Thumper still gets it in the end. As Conn explains, it's really not about the penknives and air rifles, "it's to do with the way children are raised and what they consider important." Which is why he considers "Extraordinary Stories" vital to the book. "If you put in a story of incredible endurance or courage, you are saying these are impressive values," he says. "[Boys today] don't get heroic stories in the way I did. And I think they're desperately important."

FRANK DIGIACOMO