MarketingVOX: The Dangerous Book for Boys, a retro-style adventure manual that made good in England and Australia, has also become an unlikely hit among fickle 10-12-year-olds in the U.S., reports.
Penned by the Iggulden brothers and published by HarperCollins, the book targets 10-year-old boys and Boomer fathers, originally pegged a more savory audience because of the book’s retro pre-Internet feel.
The Dangerous Book for Boys instructs readers on paper plane building, rabbit-hunting, Texas Hold ‘Em and the Battle of Thermopylae. Some have compared its look and feel to The American Boy’s Handy Book, written by Daniel Carter Beard and published in 1882.
While The Dangerous Book for Boys seems an unintuitive gift for ‘tween boys growing up in the digital age, Paul Bogaards, executive for rival publisher Knopf, called it a “Million-copy-plus seller easy, with the shelf life of Hormel Spam.” He noted one copy was a hit with his tech-savvy son, age eight.
The recently-released publication boasts 405,000 print copies, of which 91,000 belong to News Corp. It sits at fifth-best in sales on Amazon, and Barnes and Noble has committed to creating an exclusive promotional table in its stores. It retails for $24.95.
Aspects of the book were changed for an American audience. A section about royalty was replaced with information on the 50 states and the Declaration of Independence. A “Navajo Code Talkers’ Dictionary” also slipped in after the removal of a chapter on British patron saints.
The two pages on girls, however, remain unchanged for U.S. readers. The first piece of advice reads, “It is important to listen.”
HarperCollins has no near-term plans for a girl’s version. Though female dissent has begun appearing on blogs, Senior Editor Matthew Benjamin of HarperCollins noted, “There hasn’t been any organized protest.”
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