About The Double-Daring Book for Girls
About The Double-Daring Book for Girls
Not often in history have girls and women been encouraged to be daring. It’s a remarkable word, daring: old-fashioned and forward-looking all at the same time. With all the rules we’re given about what girls should and shouldn’t do, a little daring can go a long way.
As we learned in the original Daring Book for Girls, daring comes in many flavors. It can mean seeking adventure and being bold when bold is called for. It can mean being confident and brave and saying yes to the good risks that life brings your way. It is true that some daring happens on a grand scale, such as rafting down a raging river, surfing monster waves, saving lives, or traveling on a worldwide expedition. But everyday daring, courage, and bravery are no less important, whether it’s trying something new, sticking up for someone who is being teased, or taking a small chance that winds up making a big difference.
When we put together The Double-Daring Book for Girls, we discovered daring girls and women everywhere we looked. Cowgirls who dared to ride horses and rope cattle. Bicycle-riding women who traded their Victorian hoopskirts for bloomers at a time when women weren’t allowed to wear pants. Women and girls who risked their lives escaping slavery on the Underground Railroad—and who then, daringly, helped others escape, too. Women who looked to the skies and discovered the secrets of the universe, and daring girls who became musicians and scientists and leaders when no one thought women should do these things.
In addition to inspiring stories like these, The Double-Daring Book for Girls is bursting with crafts and games, sports and knowledge, and facts about the world. In these pages, girls can discover everything from how to make an electric buzzer game to how to create lightning in your mouth; from car camping and star gazing to turning your backyard into a farm; from making your own piñata out of papier-mâché to creating your own fun at slumber parties. Daring girls can learn to run a magazine or paint a room, run off and join the circus, or put on a show. With chapters on scoubidou braiding, dream catchers, card games, and even a whole chapter of stuff to do when you’re bored, no girl will ever be at a loss for things to do.
Daring is all around us. It is in girls who break barriers and girls who help out friends. It is in girls who scale mountains and girls who speak their minds. It is in girls who make things and girls who ask questions, girls who set their sights on adventure and girls who find adventure in their own backyards. Daring is about finding your journey and following your dreams—getting off the sidelines and getting in the game, whatever your game may be.
So fire up your inner daring, turn the page, and remember the daring girl credo: Enjoy yourself, learn new things, and lead an interesting life.
Go on—we double-dare you!
—Andrea J. Buchanan & Miriam Peskowitz