Flipping the view

This book is like a simple guided tour to philosophical thinking.

The title of the book ‘Philosophy for Children’ written by Sundar Sarukkai shouldn’t deter children who might get the impression that a whole lot of high philosophy has been packed between its pages. Yes, there is philosophy, but it’s in such a light manner, that one doesn’t feel the burden of it at all. The book can be called creative non-fiction that explains philosophy to children in simple and easy terms, making one feel that a favourite teacher is explaining a lesson in class or a popular uncle is narrating a story.

All our lives, we have been trained to see things in a certain way. What Sarukkai does is flip the view, bring it closer and make us see the same things differently.

He takes the readers into the world of philosophical thinking with a simple guided tour that starts with explaining what is philosophy. It’s not just another subject. “It is a way of thinking, it is a way of understanding our world, understanding who we are as human beings. It is the foundation of all other subjects that you study.”

He shatters the assumption that philosophy is a subject for adults, especially thinkers. The book is broken into eight chapters, with easy descriptions and simple examples that make it a quick and light read.

Seeing with imagination

The first chapter titled ‘Seeing’ explains the difference between seeing with eyes open and daydreaming which is seeing with the eyes of the mind aka imagination. He further elaborates on seeing as one kind of perception, a part of our five senses, explaining how seeing is our way of perceiving objects or identifying them, by focusing on how they look.

My favourite chapter was ‘Thinking.’ Sarukkai leads the reader gently into the doorway of thinking, asking the reader questions: what exactly is thinking, what do we do when we think, is there a place in our body where we do our thinking from? What happens to our body when we think?

I remember on an author visit to a school, years ago, a small boy told me that when he thinks his head feels hot. A girl told me that she feels a funny sensation in her stomach when she thinks hard. That incident came to my mind while reading the chapter. We have always been taught that we think only with our mind or brain.

The entire chapter on thinking will make the readers think about the process of thinking. Sarukkai goes a lot further by explaining why thinking is important, how it’s related to knowledge, how thinking helps us predict/anticipate what will happen, and how thinking led to inventions and scientific knowledge. He offers many tips on how to improve one’s thinking.

For parents whose children shy away from reading, the chapter titled ‘Reading’ comes as a boon. When reading is compared to a game, a treasure hunt where a child or a reader searches for the treasure by diving into the world of words and sentences, running through paragraphs and pages and emerging at the end with a story, even the most reluctant reader will start reading.

There are more chapters, but let me leave that discovery to the readers. The writing finds a suitable companion in Priya Kurian’s illustrations. At the end of each chapter, there are exercises that a child can do alone or in a group. Currently, the book is available in English and Tamil, with plans of translating it into several Indian languages.

Philosophy for Children will make a wonderful addition to supplementary reading for children. School libraries will be enriched with the inclusion of this book on their shelves. Kudos to Sarukkai for ensuring that the book doesn’t venture near the territory of boredom.