The American Boy's Handy Book

What to Do and How to Do It
by Daniel Carter Beard

First published in 1882, but more relevant than ever, this book contains a wealth of projects and games, with practical directions on how to make and enjoy them. Written by one of the founders of the Boy Scouts of America, here is the ultimate pre-TV, anti-couch potato activity book, answering the question, "What's there to do?" Projects range from making kites to making hot-air balloons, stocking an aquarium or making fishing tackle, constructing a hut from pine boughs or building a one-person canoe—everything from imitating bird calls to devising squirt guns with astonishing range and authority.

"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 hopes that his son (or daughter) might still enjoy." —Washington Post Book World

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