ThinkAboutIt: Philosophy for Kids, by Amy Leask, is a witty introduction to philosophy for children. The book is written from the perspective of a young girl named Sophia the Wise as she guides children through the basics ideas, timeline, and popular philosophers from around the world. The Sophia begins this journey by offering rules for this thought process, information about famous philosophers, as well as a description of the subject from their point of view.  A myriad of questions on popular topics like politics, metaphysics, and epistemology are included along with journal pages, weird philosopher facts, and daily application tips. 

I used this book to create a 30-day philosophy unit study for our 10 year old son. I thought learning about philosophy would be a great way to take his "why" questions to the next level and give him the opportunity to understand the importance of arguing and discussing things. My main objective was to prepare him to discuss things in a professional manner that is educational and beneficial to all involved. For two weeks we read a couple of pages from this book each day and talked about what we read. After that, twice a week I took some of the discussion questions and had my son write his thoughts on the Philosopher Journal pages.

This book is twenty-six pages, similar to a workbook format and the information provided is a good start to introduce philosophy. The wording is easy to understand for older, elementary aged children and will keep them interested. Our family's only complaint was the graphics used throughout the book. Sophia is seen on almost every page and though she is noted to be a girl, she looks quite masculine. I think using softer strokes would lighten her appearance and make her look like the young girl described in the book. Other characters like Socrates, Baruch Spinoza, David Hume, and Ms. Arendt also have extremely abstract cartoons. At some points in the book the aforementioned characters don't look the same at all which was quite confusing.

ThinkAboutIt: Philosophy for Kids provided a compact introduction to the subject of philosophy and would be good for children ages 8 to 10 years old. I found the details on the various philosophers interesting and also noted the timelines which showed how thoughts changed over the years. I feel that it is important to discuss philosophy with your children because it prepares them for apologetics as Christian believers. Discussing this now, and continuing to reinforce the concepts with scripture, creates a firm foundation to prepare our children to argue the Christian perspective of politics, ethics, aesthetics, logic, and much more.

-Product review by Ta’Neisha Kemp, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, September, 2018