Tim and the Giant Teapot: A Book Review

Tim and the Giant Teapot is a different kind of children’s book.

I started to get a sense of just how different it is from the credits on the first page. These included thanks to people like Anthony Magnabosco, David G. McAfee, James Randi, and Seth Andrews. What do all these people have in common? They are public advocates for scientific skepticism and critical thinking.

I was immediately hooked. This is a kid’s book that kicks off with a who’s who of advocates for skepticism! It’s like finding a needle in a haystack, in a barn full of haystacks. And the beautiful thing is that this isn’t just any kids’s book, it is one for very, very young readers.

Tim and the Giant Teapot is a rhyming book in the style of Dr. Seuss. It is a fun and fanciful story that is suitable for preschool to elementary aged children who are still learning to read. One of the great things about the book is that the adults who read it to their children will spot lots of allusions to scientists, philosophers, and concepts that kids are unlikely to know about, like the cat’s bowl with “Schrodinger” written on it, or the bust of Socrates in the background of a character’s home. Reading through the book a second time I spotted allusions to philosophical concepts like the Trolly Problem, and other high-concept easter eggs were hidden throughout the book. Even the title of the book alludes to the famous Russell’s Teapot, which the philosopher Bertrand Russell used to explain a tricky philosophical concept, the burden of proof:

If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. 

In other words, if someone claims that there is a teapot floating in space it is their job to prove it, not yours to disprove it. Your only job is to doubt it until it is shown to be true.

This is powerful idea. People making extraordinary claims argue all the time that the fact that “you can’t prove it’s not true” is evidence for their claim. But that simply cannot be the case, because if it were then we would be have to believe just about every wild idea under the sun and beyond. We can’t show to a 100% satisfaction that Zeus, Bigfoot, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster are not real. You can’t show that there absolutely isn’t an invisible dragon living in my garage. We can’t show with complete certainty that all sorts of conspiracy theories aren’t true. But thanks to the idea behind Russell’s Teapot we don’t have to. The burden of proof is on the people making those claims. We only have to stay skeptical.

Russell was using this analogy to highlight the burden of proof in religious claims in particular, and Tim and the Giant Teapot does not shy away from this topic. This is exceedingly rare in children’s books, and puts Tim and Giant Teapot in good company with books like the Beyond Belief book series, The Belief Book, Elle The Humanist, and Oh My Gods!

In the book we follow Tim and his friend Kate as they seek out a cure for her damaged teddy bear. Kate insists that they seek help from the Giant Teapot in the sky, which answers prayers and heals people. Tim plays the role of the skeptic and does something amazing that made me do a double-take: he asks her how much she believes in the Giant Teapot on a scale from 1 to 10.

Anyone familiar with Street Epistemology will immediately recognize this as one of its core techniques (this is also a core technique in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, but that is another story). Street Epistemology is a method for helping people think critically about their beliefs through a friendly socratic dialogue. One of the most skillful advocates for this approach is Anthony Magnobosco (who is thanked in the credits). He has a YouTube channel where he shares clips of people engaging in street epistemology and they always open with a question: “How confident are you in your belief on a scale from 1 to 100?” As the dialogue continues Magnobosco continues checking in with them on the scale, and often people’s confidence slides lower as they think through the evidence and reasons for their beliefs. This is all done with so much care and warmth that the people in the videos often thank him for the chance to have the conversation and many return for multiple follow up conversations. It is a great example of caring critical thinking done with the person instead of against them, and I show these videos to my own kid as an example of how such conversations should go.

It is wonderful that a book for children models a technique right out of Street Epistemology, and in the bigger picture, it is wonderful that there is another book out there with a kid skeptic as the hero of the story. We need many more. I recommend that you read Tim and the Giant Teapot to your little critical thinker and take the time to discuss some of the ideas in it. And if your kiddo identifies with Tim, maybe show them a video of Street Epistemology in action, like this one: