Book Review: You Are a Social Detective!

You Are a Social Detective: Explaining Social Thinking to Kids written by Michelle Garcia Winner and Pamela Crooke, and illustrated by Kelly Knopp is to be enjoyed by all the young Social Detectives who might have School Smarts, Science Smarts, or Music Smarts and need just a little help with their Social Smarts to make a big difference in their daily interactions.

Are you a good Social Thinker? The authors end their book by saying when the young readers of You are a Social Detective grow up, they will be good Social Thinkers.  How will we know?  “They will work well with others in the office and in their homes – for example, as moms, dads, teachers, and other types of workers.”

What is Social Thinking?

Social Thinking is a way to train your brain to help you figure out the people around you. You are a Social Thinker each time you are around other people and you are aware that your behavior causes them to have thoughts about you. Having Social Smartsor doing what is expected, help our brains to know that the things we do or say will give others good thoughts about us and make them feel good too.

You are a good Social Detective when you use your Social Detective Tools like your eyes, ears, brain/knowing, and heart/feelings to help you figure out people.  We figure out how to behave based on where we are and what we are expected to do at that time.

Features of the Book

You are a Social Detective: Explaining Social Thinking to Kids is an eye-catching book described as a comic book. It has 60 glossy, colorful pages 11 inches by 8 ½ inches. The two staple binding allows the book to be folded easily so the adult can present only one page at a time. The keywords are clearly explained in the Social Thinking Vocabulary Definitions on the last pages. It is good for both adult and child to learn these terms together and use them frequently in discussions.

This book uses the perfect medium for their target audience. After having shared this book with an adult, a non-reader will be able to flip through it alone and “read the images”.

Who is the Target Audience?

Dear Parent and Professional, the authors write, “This isn’t just a book for kids… Our hope is that it will be used as a way to introduce the concepts of Social Thinking to general teachers, para-professionals, parents, caregivers, special educators, grandparents, siblings, day care workers, scout leaders, etc. and of course, to those kids who are learning how to be Social Detectives!”

The publisher, The North River Press, says, “Elementary school-aged (K-5) students, and immature older middle and high school students who enjoy visual books, may benefit from this book. But this isn’t just a book for students who have challenges relating to autism spectrum disorders, Asperger’s, ADHD and like challenges.”

I fully agree with both and as a teacher, parent and grandparent, I believe that ALL children can benefit from the lessons learned by reading and sharing You are a Social Detective: Explaining Social Thinking to Kids written by Michelle Garcia Winner and Pamela Crooke, with adults who can discuss with them their relationships at home, at school and in the community.

Lorna d'Entremont

I am a retired teacher with 30 years experience in French elementary classroom and more years as a mother and grandmother of Tourette syndrome and sensory sensitive offsprings. Upon retirement, I embarked on an interesting project with my daughter who undertook the challenge of creating a safe, wearable or attachable, effective chewable fidget for special needs individuals.