featured book review: november 2002

Alexander Fox and the Amazing Mind Reader         
   by John C. Clayton
   for Ages 8-12 (from Prometheus Books, 1998) OUT OF PRINT

Alexander Fox is a young man of a skeptical bent and inquiring mind. When an archetypical psychic con man named Mr. Mystikos comes to town, everyone but Alex seems duped by his parlor tricks. But Alex asks all the right questions, endures the scorn of his credulous friends, and ultimately unmasks the fraud.

That's the story of ALEXANDER FOX AND THE AMAZING MIND READER. The book is a strong, straightforward primer for skeptical thinking, pushing all the right buttons and slaying all the right dragons.

I had a typically adult quibble with the somewhat stilted writing style; the text has more than a few authorial 'messages' poking out of the story's flow like a minister's upthrust finger. But the story gets an undeniable grip on you, and an even greater one on the kids.

Just as I was doing an inner quibble about this or that stylistic moment, I turned to see my son's face, frozen in place, eyes fixed on a spot in the distance. "This book is just... so INTERESTING!" He was lit up like a Solstice Tree. I didn't see it coming, to tell you the truth, but I'm willing to admit that's because I'm quite familiar with the kind of step-by-step critical thinking laid out in the book, so it looks a tad preachy at times. But what was old hat to me was new and exciting and worthwhile to him.

The single greatest achievement of the storyline is the fact that Alexander is temporarily stumped by the psychic's tricks himself. For several pages, it looks like he might very well be without recourse to an explanation. Kid readers feel it too: "Well how DID Mr. Mystikos know what card Alexander had drawn??", and so on. It makes the eventual triumph of Alex's mind all the more thrilling as a vicarious experience.

This is not the first time I've misjudged my kids' reactions -- see the book review for May, "If You Had to Choose, What Would You Do?". In that book it was the presentation of some of the simpler moral dilemmas that seemed a bit cliché to me but absolutely enthralling to both my four- and seven-year olds. In that case and in the case of "Alexander Fox," my kids reacted with unusual excitement to something that I found off-the-mark. It's not just a question of a less critical approach in kids -- they can be quite savvy and articulate about their judgments -- but in these two cases there was not just bland acceptance but real excitement at the discovery of a new kind of problem-solving, a new way of working the mind. I've got to think there's a powerful lesson in there. And it's unsurprising, perhaps, that both books are from Prometheus.

In short, to heck with my paltry quibbles. This is a great and unique book. The person in my house who is actually a member of the target audience simply cannot wait to read it again. If I were you, I'd listen to him.