Counting Pinecones: Forensic Faith for Kids ( A Homeschool Crew Review)

Many times in our walk with Christ, we are confronted with questions regarding our faith or about God that are difficult to answer for us. For our children, those questions are even harder to answer, making it very challenging for them to share their faith. However, a new series of books from David C Cook and Case Makers Academy has found a creative way to teach students how to investigate and find answers to difficult questions using some of the very tools and techniques used by actual detectives.

The kids and I have had the pleasure of reading the book Forensic Faith for Kids written by J. Warner Dateline, Fox News and truTV. Along with his wife Susie, the Wallaces have worked with youth in their church for over a decade. They are also the author of Cold-Case Christianity, Cold-Case Christianity for Kids, God's Crime Scene, God's Crime Scene for Kids, and Forensic Faith.

Wallace and Susie Wallace along with Rob Suggs. Mr Wallace is an actual cold-case detective who has been featured on various television programming such as

Forensic Faith for Kids is a 134 page paperback and contains 8 chapters as well as a postscript chapter. There is also a Certificate of Qualification from the "Cadet Academy" that can be filled out and given to your child after completing the book.

What We Thought

This book instantly caught my youngest daughter's attention. She absolutely loves Corgis so when she saw Bailey, the Welsh Corgi that is the focus of the first investigation in the book, she was interested. For this review, we sat together every night and read one chapter of the book aloud together.

This book focuses on two cases. The first case is to find where the cute corgi puppy Bailey came from after she was found at a fundraising car wash. The second case involves finding evidence as to whether or not Jesus referred to himself as God after another one Academy members finds herself facing a dilemma involving a non-believer making her friend question her faith in Jesus.

Throughout each chapter of the story, the authors include "CSI Assignments" that ask the reader to read a particular passage from the Bible and completely a short activity about it (answering a question of filling in missing word), "Detective Definitions" that give a quick tidbit about a tool or technique used by Detectives in their line of work, and the "Detective Bag" that invites the reader to evaluate things in their own lives and see how they can use the tools being learned to strengthen their faith. These little extras were entertaining and the kids really enjoyed these short breaks from the story as they learned about why police dogs are called K-9 or where the word "forensic" came from.

In addition to the book itself, the authors include a website that readers can visit that has supplemental materials that can help the readers to dig deeper into the two cases. Most interesting are the videos which feature Mr Wallace as he explains step by step how to interpret the evidence presented and use that evidence to make your case for faith. He explains this for both cases presented in the book and shows the correlation between the two cases, how the tools used to investigate the first case can also be used to investigate the case for faith.

Also included on the website is a Leaders Guides for each chapter, which points out key concepts to focus on while reading, Bible readings and activities to work on for each chapter that help drive the concepts home, and open ended questions to give an opportunity to think about both the cases as well as passages of the Bible and discuss what can be learned from them. You can also download the Academy Notebook page which gives the reader the opportunity to take notes on key points in regards to the cases and the Bible section being focused on, as well as the Training activity Sheet that has a short activity that help develop critical thinking skills. Downloading these sheets as well as watching the videos takes the book from just a reading activity to a fully immersible learning experience.

We have really enjoyed reading this book as a family and I will have to invest in the other two books for kids. The books provide great tools that the kids can use for other question they may come across in regards to their faith, allowing them to find their own answers when necessary.