By host Tom Ashbrook:

A hundred years ago, stout, red-blooded Americans worried that American boys were losing their natural path to manhood. That too much time around books and skirts was ruining American boys.

Substitute video games and couch-time, and the fear is back today. Too much X-box, not enough bugs and mud.

Now, just in time for summer rambles, comes “The Dangerous Book for Boys.” A bestseller in the UK, it is rocketing up the charts here. And it’s all about bugs and mud and guns and battle. Boy stuff, say the authors.

This hour On Point: “The Dangerous Book for Boys” and American kids at play.

Guests:

Conn Iggluden, co-author of “The Dangerous Book for Boys”

Dan Kindlon, co-author of “Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys” and author of “Alpha Girls: Understanding the New American Girl and How She is Changing the World,” and professor of child psychology at Harvard University

Katha Pollitt, columnist for The Nation, and author of “Virginity or Death!: And Other Social and Political Issues of Our Time” and “Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics, and Culture”.