For the past several weeks, for this product review, Maris and I have been reading about how to be detectives with the Case Makers Academy“s Forensic Faith for Kids provided by David C Cook.

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Forensic Faith For Kids

About

This is a physical softcover fiction mystery book that has you as one of the main characters! It is written by J. Warner Wallace (Jim Wallace) and Susie Wallace with Rob Suggs. Daniel, Jason and you find a lost puppy and use clues to track down the owner. Hannah and Jasmine are called in to help with the mystery. The group goes to the police station, veterinarian, a dog breeder, a pet store and more to discover the answer of where this lost puppy could be from.

Meanwhile, Hannah is trying to help her friends, Tiana and Marco, with some faith doubts and questions they are having and finds answers to help them. Talking to a real grown up detective, Detective Jeffries, the kids find evidence for their faith so they can share it in diagram form with Bible references to Tiana and Marco. The reader learns that, “witnesses don't usually agree about everything. It doesn't mean they are lying – in fact, you should be suspicious if the witnesses do agree about every detail. It's natural for two or three witnesses to describe things slightly differently.”

Additional Information

The book gives rules about evidence that can be used in our faith lives as well, “1. Just because someone wrote something in a book, it doesn't mean it's true. 2. Everything has the potential to be evidence. 3. The more cumulative the case, the more reasonable the conclusion.” There are highlighted boxes called “Detective Definitions” that describe what a detective term means and may relate it to how we can use it in apologetics as a Christian.

There are also highlighted sections called “A ‘Tool' for Your Detective Bag!” that give you pointers of how to share your faith and listen to others to better know and help others you are sharing with. Additionally, there is a “CSI Assignment box” which gives a Bible verse to read and asks you a question about it. The book has many illustrations to go along with the story.

The puppy ends up belonging to Marco's Mom, who bought it for Marco's birthday! In the end, Tiana is guided back to her faith, but Marco does not yet accept Jesus.

How We Used It

Maris, my seventh grade son, and I each read the book, separately, at different times on our own and discussed portions of it as we were reading it. We did not use the Case-Makers Academy website for additional study materials, but they are available for this book. Here is a screenshot of what you would find there.

When you click into one, like the Chapter Two box, for example, this is what you will find.

You can watch a short video and download additional information, like training activity sheets, an Academy Notebook or an Adult Leader Guide. We did not use this part of the program for this review, but it is available.

Maris' Opinion

It was good, but it could be better. I think everything is predictable and I knew it would happen that way. It was surprising that Marco didn't accept Jesus in the story though.

My Opinion

I like that the book has many illustrations and the puppy drawings were really cute. It is a believable, realistic story. It is a good thing that they include the reader in the story in solving these two cases, the case of the missing puppy and the case for Christ. Even though Marco doesn't accept Jesus at the end of the story, it is good for young Christians to know that sometimes it happens that way, but to keep sharing your faith because someday a person may accept Jesus from your “evidence” helping to answer their questions.