Customer Reviews

The Thinking Toolbox: Thirty-five Lessons That Will Build Your Reasoning Skills

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Having read The Fallacy Detective, written by Hans and Nathaniel Bluedorn, I turned immediately to the second title in the Christian Logic series. The Thinking Toolbox is "like a toolbox - full of all kinds of tools you can use for different thinking tasks" (from the back cover). Like its predecessor, it is self-teaching and is written to appeal to both teenagers and adults.

While the format of this book is much the same as The Fallacy Detective, it is in many ways better-written and better-formatted. While the format of the book is much the same, featuring thirty-five lessons, each followed by questions of application, the illustrations were superior and more appealing. It continued to feature the humorous touches that made the previous book such a joy to read, even though it dealt with weighty subject matter.

The Thinking Toolbox teaches reasoning skills. It begins with introducing the differences between a discussion, a disagreement, an argument and a fight and guides the reader to understand how to discern premises and conclusions. It progresses to providing tools to understand and deal with opposing viewpoints, before wrapping up with tools for science. These include observation, brainstorming, hyposthesizing, analysis and so on. There are even a few projects and games added to the end of the book to provide further opportunities for application.

The only complaint I might have about this book is that the questions following each lesson did not repeat as often or as deliberately as they did in The Fallacy Detective, which provides fewer opportunities for review.

This is another helpful title that will no-doubt be helpful in guiding students to use and improve their God-given reasoning abilities. I would suggest that this title has less-appeal to adults than its predessor, but equal appeal to teenagers. It would be a very useful tool for summer-reading or as part of a homeschooling cirriculum. I unreservedly recommend it.

I loved The Thinking Toolbox, and I'm 43 years old! The Bluedorns have done it again, with this follow up to their book, The Fallacy Detective. The lessons featured in The Thinking Toolbox are directed towards homeschool students, but are actually applicable and valuable for 'students' of all ages. In this day and age of news reports that are questionable, at best, and flimsy-flip-flop values and moral relativism, the Thinking Toolbox should be on everyone's shelf.

I found the illustrations by Richard LaPierre to be especially charming, appealing and fun. This is no dry textbook. Mr. LaPierre's talent is refreshing. A great accompaniment to the Bluedorn's commentary.

Be sure to pick up a copy for your teenager, and for yourself.

It's not often that I get excited about reviewing a book, but I was excited about this one. We live in a world filled with knowledge, but knowledge is all but useless without critical thinking skills. As important as this is for adults, it's even more important for teens - because it is our teen years that we are solidifying how we see the world and who we are.

The ability to think critically impacts every aspect of our children's daily lives. Everything from how to handle disagreement between friends, to dealing with peer pressure, to reasoning out problems in school. As adults, we bring those skills into our marriages, our families, our jobs, and finances. But teaching those skills is a daunting task. How do you teaching someone how to think?

I was surprised to see how easily The Thinking Toolbox does just that. Each short explanation is paired with a series of fun, relevant exercises to help teens use the skills they learn. How to defend what you believe. How to tell the difference between fact, inference, and opinion. How to use corroborating evidence. How and why sometimes you should learn to defeat your own argument. How to analyze data and to brainstorm. Even situations - such as when someone is in emotional distress - when using logic is not appropriate.

But this book goes beyond teens. These are pithy and powerful tools. In reading the book, I couldn't help but think how many situations we, as adults, face every day when such skills could be put to use. From analyzing the trustworthiness of a news report to resolving personal differences at work. The section on the difference between a discussion, a disagreement, and a fight has powerful relevance in nearly every one of our lives today.

The design is teen-friendly, designed to be easy to read and eye-catching. One minor criticism. The exercises run together, in a list, and sometimes aren't well differentiated. When the type of exercise changes from one to the other, this can get confusing, especially in the front of the book until you get used to the format. But a little guidance on how to use the book takes care of that problem easily. I do hope, however, that in future versions, the layout of the exercises is tweaked to make them easier to follow.

I would have also liked to see the authors spend time up front talking about why reasoning skills are so important. We all have busy lives - especially teens - and there is so much we are expected to learn. Knowing how this learning will help us motivates us to study.

I remember a movie back from the 80s called "Summer School," with Mark Harmon. Assigned to teach summer school English, a physical education teacher had to figure out how to get a bunch of decidedly unmotivated students to pay attention to him teaching English. So when one student complained about broken sunglasses, Harmon took that opportunity to show the students how they could use good English skills to get free stuff. The class wrote a letter to the manufacturer, complaining about the glasses, and ended up with a box of brand-new glasses for everyone.

Likewise, a few examples up front in "The Thinking Toolbox, "showing how this information will help in teens' everyday lives, would be great.

- H. L. Nigro, founder, Strong Tower Publishing

This book was an enjoyable and quick workbook on the basics of thinking logically and learning to form arguments, analyze arguments and examine evidence. There are plenty of varied examples and exercises to work through and perfect your analytical skills. This book was written for your typical youth who is just starting out in the arts of persuasion, and I, having been already well versed in these subjects didn't find the book all that useful.

I did do a spattering of exercises, and found the examples used were pertinent, and a few of them were quite challenging. This book would probably be quite beneficial to teens and those about to enter college.

The book has a Christian bent, which is not objectionable to me (I being a Christian myself). This book would even be useful to young people of any faith, and the Christian themes are not overpowering.

Among the most interesting of the examples and exercises are historical examples including the discovery of Pluto and the gunfight at the OK Corral. If you are a young person about to enter college or know one, get them this book. It will give them a head start in formulating arguments and defending against some of the academic idiocies that are like a plague in this country.

I wasn't quite sure how I would like a book that's all about sharpening your reasoning skills and that used the term LOGIC. Would it be boring? Would it make me feel dumb in the end?

Anyhow, I had heard great things about this book by Nathaniel Bluedorn and Hans Bluedorn (as well as their other book The Fallacy Detective)...so I dove right in...and was not disappointed!

Why couldn't they have had books like this in high school and college??? The Bluedorns did a fabulous job of walking you through various thinking tasks (such as When is it Dumb to Argue?, Using the Scientific Method, Who has a reason to Lie?, etc) in an easy-to-read, easy-to-understand and quite entertaining way. The scenarios and conversations they include will help you apply your new-found skills into real life situations. After all, what good is a tool if you don't know when or how to use it?

I loved how each lesson was short and to-the-point. Quite necessary for those of us with demanding toddlers or anyone with a short attention span. Each lesson also had exercises at the end (don't worry, no crunches or push-ups required!); and each exercise builds on previous exercises which helps to further drive the point home. Ahem...and for those of you who still worry about tackling logic, there IS an answer key at the end!

Initially, I was quite skeptical of being able to recommend a book about logic, but The Thinking Toolbox is one of the BEST books I have ever read on the subject! It is self-teaching and offers a Christian view of logic. It is written for ages 13 through adult and is a very useful way to introduce critical and systematic thinking/reasoning to students. I think it would be a perfect read for your student before they tackle their next science project or experiment, make a speech, write a research paper, or just any time. It would also prove quite useful for any mom or dad to get their thinking-ducks in a row as well...so check it out!

This is a book designed to teach people how to think. The book is intended for anyone middle school-age to adult, and I know many people who could use a book like this -- including myself!

I don't know about other people's experiences growing up, but I was not taught how to think. Not by my parents (and I have wonderful, loving parents, so please don't think I'm casting blame), not by my teachers, and not by my pastors. Especially not by my teachers. We assumed that anything we were taught or read in textbooks must be true. We were not encouraged to question or discover for ourselves whether something was true or not. I remember in high school science class being baffled by the teachers' claims that the world was formed by a gaseous explosion in space millions of years ago. I knew this teaching contradicted the Bible, but I had no tools with which to support my belief.

That's what this book does. It gives you tools to think for yourself. Yes, I want my children to obey my husband and I and trust that we have their best interests at heart. But I also want them to know how to think. I don't want them to trust every claim made by the media, an author, or even a pastor without checking it out for themselves.

Not only does this book help you to investigate ideas logically, it also shows how to support your own beliefs. How to argue a point -- and when it's best not to argue. It gives the basics of the scientific method, and it tells readers how to recognize pseudo-science being passed off as hard fact.

Some of the chapter titles are:

- When It Is Dumb to Argue
- How to List Reasons Why You Believe Something
- When Not to Use Logic
- You Can't Believe Everything You Hear
- Who Has a Reason to Lie
- Does a Possibly Make a Probably?
- How to Be a Keen Observer
- Brainstorming
- How to Prove You Are Wrong
- How to Analyze Data

I am so impressed by this book. The content is extremely valuable, and it is presented in a straight-forward, humorous way that teens will appreciate. Each chapter ends with plenty of exercises to allow you to use the tools you have gained.

I will definitely be using this book in our homeschool when our children are older. But I won't wait to begin teaching them some of these tools. I only wish I could afford to buy a copy to send to every person who forwards me an e-mail claiming that Bill Gates will make me rich if I just forward it to a gazillion people!

When I said I would read and review The Thinking Toolbox by Nathaniel & Hans Bluedorn, I did not know that it was a textbook for homeschoolers. I don't homeschool my children and probably would not have asked for this particular book had I realized. I wouldn't have thought that it would have been something I would be interested in. I am glad that I didn't know.

The book says that it is for children 13 through adult. Well, my children are 7, 10, and 12 (in August) and they loved it. We sat down for our first lesson and they didn't want to stop even after our fourth! They really enjoyed the formatting and the "thinking" was fun to them. They couldn't wait until we sat down the next day to start on lesson five.

The book is set up as a toolbox full of thinking tools. Each lesson teaches you a thinking tool and how that thinking tool can help you with different thinking tasks. It teaches you when it is dumb to argue, how to analyze the arguments of someone who disagrees with you, what the difference between an argument and a fight are, how to list reasons why you believe the things you believe, and much more. It even has a chapter on projects and games.

While the book states that it is based on a Christian view of logic, I honestly feel that even non-Christians can use this book and enjoy it. The biblical references are not overly done and what is there is done very well and fits in with the lesson. Also, parents of public school children will find this book valuable to their children. It will definitely help them with everyday situations that they face.

After seeing the Bluedorn's initial logic book, "The Fallacy Detective", I was excited to find out that they were writing a sequel--this time, however, they weren't discussing how NOT to think. In this book, they cover how to think and use your mind.

I had the good fortune to be involved in editing this book pre-pub, and as I was editing this book, I became increasingly amazed at how helpful and informative it was, and yet so easy and fun to read...mind you, this is no dull and boring textbook. This book has a light style, with great illustrations and interesting and sometimes fun examples.

In this book, as in "The Fallacy Detective", every chapter ends with exercises that are sometimes fun and sometimes tough, and help you remember and use what you learned in the chapter.

I found this book helpful for learning how to think and use my mind in different ways. Hopefully, you will, too.

Have you ever stopped to think about how much money is spent in advertising aimed at your kids? Did you ever listen to a political debate with your kids and have them express their views regarding the debate? Were they able to solidly defend their views? Can your children differentiate between factual and false claims as they wade through ads promising to be "scientifically" or "medically" proven to cause weight loss, restore lost hair, or return aging skin to it's former dewey youthful complexion? Are your children able to defend their faith, their world view, their political persuasion with substantive thought and clarity?

If you've pondered any or all of those questions and wanted a resource to aid your children in discerning truth and being able to share truth clearly, then you'll want to introduce them to The Thinking Toolbox. While this book is self-teaching, you would miss some great opportunities for lively discussions if you didn't share the journey through The Thinking Toolbox with them.

I would be remiss to not mention the Bible being our main foundation when it comes to seeking and finding truth. The Thinking Toolbox builds upon that foundation and the book's effectiveness is in its bringing the principles of that foundation into everyday situations. It teaches your kids ways to discern between truth and lie amidst the daily bombardment of information in sales pitches, "scientific" and "medical" claims, political debates, daily news, and much more.

Even in the book's examples, exercises, and answers, you will probably find that you don't agree with the authors one hundred percent of the time. Therein lies the beauty of the book: you no longer allow your brain to sluggishly swallow everything it's being fed. You are challenged to think through your acceptance or rejection of what's being offered. Additionally you learn how to defend your choice of acceptance or rejection.

The Thinking Toolbox is not a quick read. It's something to be shared one bite-sized chapter at a time. And each "bit" provides plenty to chew on. Prepare to be stretched mentally. Prepare to find yourself thinking about and looking for the truth while sorting through the morass of information that daily assails you and your family. Prepare to be better able to live truth and to share truth with others in confidence. After all, isn't that really our purpose in life?

The Thinking Toolbox: Thirty-Five Lessons That Will Build Your Reasoning Skills is a fun book to read. The lessons are put together so they are easy to understand.

This book was a great refresher for me in defining argument and fighting. It also gives you other basics as well on debate techniques, scientific methods, and how to solve mysteries logically.

The book is recommended for those 13 and up. I believe my 10 year old would like this book as well we are going to work it into our homeschool lessons. Everyone needs to learn how to think logically and reason arguments. I wish more people really knew how to debate properly. Nowadays too many people sink into name calling very quickly.

I would highly recommend this book for all teenagers and adults that want to learn or want a refresher course in logical thinking. If you don't want to think logically or think you know everything, you won't enjoy this book.

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