From Royal Fireworks Press:

We are pleased to offer an academic Western philosophy series authored by Dr. Sharon Kaye. This expansive series consists of books for children in kindergarten all the way through the twelfth grade, taking students through the history of the Western philosophical tradition, from the Presocratics to contemporary concerns.

The first three volumes are picture books that use vivid, creative, engaging illustrations that beautifully complement the text, which tells a story and which increases in substance from year to year. They form a simple, clear, and surprisingly sophisticated introduction to the concerns of the philosophers. The next three volumes are formatted as chapter books that again tell stories but with less reliance on images. In these books, philosophers begin to appear as characters in the stories. The third set of three books is presented as a trilogy of novels, which contain gorgeous, full-color works of art, including some reknowned masterpieces. In these books, a group of middle school students enters the past through virtual reality simulations, where they engage with famous philosophers and scientists who are the heart of the Western intellectual tradition.

The third book in the last set of novels is still in process, but like the others, the books in this trilogy have been planned as engaging and creative introductions to increasingly complex and sophisticated philosophical principles, rather than as dry recitations of philosophical arguments for kids to memorize.

One of the reasons that we are so excited about the books in this series is that they so effortlessly meet our expectations for a curriculum that is child-centered and oriented toward bringing the child into the material rather than cramming as much material as possible into the child. We want children to develop a relationship with the material that engages them in situations in which they are questioning and theorizing and judging the arguments that intrigue academic philosophers. Dr. Kaye’s books do that. Children cannot help but be drawn in by the stories, and they cannot help but to learn in the process.

Dr. Sharon Kaye is Professor of Philosophy at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio. She runs a Philosophy for Kids internship program in which undergraduate students teach philosophy to middle school honors students. She has published numerous articles and books, which have been translated into Japanese, Greek, Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese, and Slovak. She is the mother of two young children. She says, “I was so happy to find in Royal Fireworks a publisher that is willing to take a chance on philosophy for kids. It needs to be a standard part of primary education. Philosophy is the mother of all the academic disciplines, and it will always be a part of them, inspiring the ever-greater reach of the human mind.”

Read Sharon Kaye’s blog about why she started this philosophy curriculum for kids.