Mind&Media Book Review: The Thinking Toolbox.

Buy this Book. - This is a review of the book The Thinking Toolbox: Thirty-Five Lessons That Will Build Your Reasoning Skills, by Nathaniel Bluedorn & Hans Bluedorn. I received this book for free from Mind&Media.

When it came in the mail I read the first chapter and immediately knew that I had to get this book into the hands of my mother who organizes our Church's free tutoring/mentoring program. We've been working with neighborhood kids in need of educational help for over ten years and she has been the person that puts together teaching aids, encourages tutors, and places children with the volunteer tutor best suited to that child's need.

So I asked her if she would be willing to do the review. She accepted and the following is her review of this wonderful book.

The Thinking Toolbox by Nathaniel Bluedorn & Hans Bluedorn is a must use book for anyone teaching children ages 13 and up. The sub-title informs us that this book has 35 lessons focused on "building reasoning skills". The authors accomplish this goal with short lessons written in a very readable language which is dotted with humor.

The book is divided into three skill teaching sections: skills for "Thinking", "Opposing Viewpoints" and "Science". In each section there are short lesson chapters which are interesting and very clear. I found that when the authors used actual historic events to teach a point, that they wrote about the event in such a way that a reader might be gently spurred on to find out more information. Cartoon drawings are eye catching and help to draw the reader's focus to specific points. Each chapter concludes with a bold type succinct summary followed by a number of "Exercises" for practicing the lesson's "tool". Answers for the exercises are found at the end of the book and are nicely arranged. The last section of the book consists of projects and games for putting the skills taught into practice.

This probably is not a book that a kid would pick up on his or her own to read. But with someone to make it required reading I think most kids would find themselves enjoying the book. The book is suitable for group or individual study. I am the director of our Church's volunteer tutoring/mentoring program and plan to encourage a number of our tutors to use it. Our sessions with children are short and the chapters of this book would lend themselves very easily to our needs. Most of the kids we work with do not have confidence in their own ability to succeed and lack the skills they need in order to succeed. I believe that learning the skills in this book would definitely enhance their confidence and serve to help increase their motivation for learning.

As a side note, I think that if a Church Youth Director could find a way to weave the teaching of these skills into Bible studies they would be useful in helping teens think through the choices with which they are faced with daily.