Forensic Faith for Kids {Product Review}

For the last several weeks, my son has been working through the book Forensic Faith for Kids from David C Cook and Case Makers Academy. This book is designed to help your children learn how to defend their Christian faith based on evidence. Because this is something that I believe is very important for any Christian to be able to do, I was curious about the book and today am sharing my review.

About the Book

Forensic Faith for Kids is the latest in the line of books published by David C Cook. It joins the likes of Cold-Case Christianity, Cold-Case Christianity for Kids, God’s Crime Scene, and more! The book was written by a cold-case detective who has been featured on Dateline, Fox News, and other crime-related television shows. Formerly an atheist, the author J. Warner Wallace, uses his skills of detecting in teaching others how to defend their faith and make a case for Christianity. 
Forensic Faith follows a group of friends who discover a lost Corgi puppy named Bailey. While searching for the owner, another of their friends is challenged by her friend to prove that Jesus claimed to be God. When both cases stump them, they seek guidance from their mentor, Detective Jeffries who guides them through seeking out the evidence in order to solve the puppy mystery, and defend the truth about Jesus.
The book has additional online supplement work in the form of short videos coordinating with each chapter AND printable coordinating activity sheets. Through the course of the book, your child will be able participate in solving the case of the missing puppy AND gain skills in learning how to defend their faith with hard evidence from the Bible.

Our Thoughts on the Product

I'm going to state upfront that my son (age 12) wasn’t interested AT ALL in this book. I set him up with it and then went online and printed out the training activity sheets and the adult leader guide for each chapter. The printouts were part of the "Academy Notebook" referred to several times in the book. I bookmarked the online videos for him to reference as he completed each chapter. I put the printouts into a 3 prong folder for easy reference. 

Watching videos on the online Case Makers Academy page

I started him off simply reading the chapters and doing the little bits in the margins that required the use of the Bible. Then after he completed the chapter, he’d work on the two activity sheets for each chapter. 

working on one of the comprehension sheets

Because the chapters were long and we are still wrapping up our summer schedule, I let him work through 1-2 chapters per week, typically having him read half a chapter at a sitting. He didn’t solve the case for the puppy until the very end of the book, and just got bored with the whole thing. It was a CHORE to get him to work through everything. I did find that it brought up some good discussions in regards to how we answer people with questions about what we believe in. I think the book also gave me some good things to work with in regards to answering not just other peoples’ questions, but any questions my son my have in regards to things he hears about what we believe. Through the course of this book, we had a situation come up, where he had some questions after reading a passage of scripture in church during a sermon. I made note of his question, and we later sat down and worked through finding him the answer to his question with EVIDENCE from the Bible itself—just as he’d been reading about in the Forensic Faith book. I appreciated a few more tools to use in our own family.
One of my favorite parts of the book was talking about how God always answers prayers; but He answers them as “Yes”, “No”, and “Not Yet”. That’s something I have to remind myself regularly, so it’s good for my son to start remembering that. 
All in all, I think the method of the book is good! It teaches a lot about apologetics with your belief system. But it just wasn’t for my son. He definitely liked the videos more than he liked the book. He only liked doing the activity sheet that was just that…an activity like dot-to-dot, a connect 4 game, words search, ect. He didn’t enjoy the other one which was a comprehension page to coordinate with the chapter. 

Always had his bible out when doing his readings

I think this book is probably most enjoyable being read aloud—especially for someone who isn’t very fond of it or reading itself. I think it was presented very well, even if my son didn’t enjoy it. There were a lot of excellent points made in regards to having evidence to back up our words as much as possible. I think my younger son would have actually enjoyed it more, but I would need to read it to him.
I think connecting the case of the missing puppy with the case for Jesus divinity  was a clever way to go about teaching the topic. 
I most likely wouldn’t purchase something like this for my family in general, but it was a useful tool during the review period. Would I purchase more products from the Case Makers Academy line? Probably not because of my son’s disinterest.  But the product is still a good product.

Want To Know More?

For the last several weeks, we have been reviewing Forensic Faith for Kids from David C Cook and Case Makers Academy. While we didn’t love it, I hope you will visit some of the other crew members to read THEIR reviews of the product. I’m sure they will have even more to say about it!

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