The Thinker’s Toolbox

(book in progress)

The Thinker’s Toolbox (working title) is a nonfiction graphic novel in which I try to distill the core lessons of twelve essential fields and present them in a series of interconnected, light-spirited cartoon narratives. Essentially, it is a general education curriculum and an entertainment piece rolled into one. The organization of the book is intimately tied to a circular medallion dividing these twelve fields into four "houses." Each field is denoted by a special symbol and name, and each house has an elemental sign (earth, air, fire, water) making the whole scheme stylistically (but not methodologically!) similar to astrology, i ching, and other semireligions. The key ideas here are (1) to commandeer the innate emotional appeal of iconography and hidden meanings and use them as delivery devices for educational content, (2) to develop a coherent and engaging broad-spectrum curriculum, (3) to build a scaffold for future content, educational and otherwise, and (4) to blur the lines between instruction, exploration, and play. Stay tuned!