Dangerous Book For Boys to become a film

Disney has snapped up the rights after a fierce bidding war.

The book by brothers Conn and Hal Iggulden is a how-to guide to such old-fashioned pursuits as skinning a rabbit and climbing trees.

It has sold nearly a million copies worldwide and has topped the New York Times best-seller list for the past three months.

Written in the style of a manual, the book is not an obvious choice for a big screen adaptation.

But the film version is likely to revolve around a father raising his sons "and balancing a natural instinct to shelter them from harm with their natural desire for adventure and even a bit of danger", according to industry magazine Variety.

It will be produced by Scott Rudin, whose credits include The Truman Show, Clueless and Oscar-winner The Queen.

The Dangerous Book For Boys was first published in the UK in May 2006 and became a surprise best-seller.

It offers instructions on how to make a catapult, build a treehouse and construct the best paper aeroplanes.

There are chapters on dinosaurs, pirates, coin tricks and conkers, plus stories of courage from historical figures included Scott of the Antarctic, Robert the Bruce and Lord Nelson.

The authors have described it as "a compendium of all the things we wanted to try and to know when we were very young - when everything was interesting and danger was fun".

Conn Iggulden, a former English teacher in a London comprehensive, is a successful historical fiction writer and this was his first non-fiction book. His younger brother, Hal, is a theatre director.

The book has already inspired several imitators include The Daring Book For Girls.