Review: The Tuttle Twins Learn About The Law

The Tuttle Twins are a series of children’s books designed to introduce children to basic concepts of economics, government, and human liberty at a young age in an age appropriate manner. The main characters of the books are twin 9-year-olds Emily and Ethan Tuttle and each book has the twins engaging in some adventure and/or learning experience that helps them to understand the ideas and values of a free and prosperous society. Each book in the series is based off of a classic work of politics, economics, or social theory.

Today I am reviewing the first book in the series, The Tuttle Twins Learn About The Law. This book is based off of the classical liberal masterpiece The Law by the brilliant 19^th century French politician, Frédéric Bastiat. As part of this article, I will review the story and the writing, the ideas being promoted in the story, how well these reflect the work the story is based upon as well as look at some common criticism and see if they hold up to scrutiny. Then I will wrap up with whether I suggest you purchase the book or not.

The Story

The book opens with Ethan and Emily in school. Their teacher, Mrs. Miner, assigns them the task of interviewing someone who they think is wise about something very important and sharing that wisdom with the class. The twins immediately think of their neighbor and family friend, Fred. After checking in with their parents, the twins visit Fred and he agrees to be interviewed by them. Leading them to his personal library (filled with many of the very best books, some of which will be the inspiration of future Tuttle Twins books), Fred presents the twins with The Law by Frédéric Bastiat. The twins, imagining he was about to tell them about something they each enjoy, are immediately disappointed. Ethan, incredulously asks, “That’s what you think is very important?”

Fred assures them that the law is extremely important because it effects their lives everyday and they don’t even realize it. The law is important, Fred explains, because everyone has rights and that their rights allow them to live as they choose when they’re adults. One of my favorite moments in the book ensues as the twins think about everything they can do with their rights, something I don’t think most of us really appreciate. Fred then teaches them that because their rights are given to them by God we also have the ability to tell right from wrong and have the responsibility to protect our rights. And this is where the book really gets meaty because, as Fred points out, one of the most dangerous violators of our rights that we have to defend against most is the government.

To help the twins understand one of the ways that the government regularly violates human individual rights, Fred uses the example of his prize tomatoes from his garden. He asks the twins if it would be alright for someone to take his tomatoes without his permission and the twins rightfully answer that it would be wrong because that is stealing. Fred then asks them to consider whether that changes if his neighbor hires a policeman to come and take his tomatoes. The kids respond that this is still wrong because it is still stealing. Fred congratulates the twins on their wisdom in understanding something that many do not, that stealing is always wrong, even when the government does it.

Fred then explains the difference between a just law and an unjust law to the twins. An unjust law is one that violates the rights of someone else and taxes are unjust because they allow the government to plunder people’s property. Just laws protect human rights and encourage people to work together peacefully and voluntarily to solve their common problems. The danger of government power is that a sit plunders people the more everyone wants to get as much as they can from others through government action. This results in a dangerous loss of freedom and prosperity as the power of the government expands to control more and more of the lives of people.

The story closes with Fred telling the twins about the power of ideas, such as those found in The Law. As people understand the purpose and value of their rights they will want to protect them, which will restrict government power, and create a more just and prosperous society for all people. They then go and share some of the tomatoes that Fred gave them with his neighbor.

The Writing

In terms of depth, this first story is basic. But that is to be expected. This is, after all, the very first book in the series. Connor Boyack, the author, was still developing his style, the voice of the characters, and the world that they live in. As the series continues the world expands, the twins develop more individual personalities, and we get to explore ideas in more detail.

That said, this book does a number of things right. It establishes Ethan and Emily as the main characters, introduces their relationship to the adults around them, and helps us get an idea of how these books will go about adapting fairly advanced economic, political, and social texts into a story that children can understand and identify with. The vocabulary isn’t too advanced either. It hits the sweet spot reading level for children between ages 7 and 10, which is the age group these books are aimed towards. My children can read the entire book and only need help with a few of the words.

Inspiration and Ideas

The negative reviews for this book on Amazon are hilarious. You can tell that the people reviewing the book have no idea what they’re talking about when they whine about how the book contains the phrase, “Our rights come from God,” and that they were “very disappointed (even disgusted) that religion had to be thrown into the mix of this topic.” If these ignorant people had ever read The Law then they would’ve known that Bastiat begins the book writing:

We hold from God the gift that, as far as we are concerned, contains all others, Life—physical, intellectual,
and moral life.

….Nature, or rather God, has bestowed upon every one of us the right to defend his person, his liberty, and his property, since these are the three constituent or preserving elements of life; elements, each of which is rendered complete by the others, and that cannot be understood without them.

^{The Law, pgs. 1&2, pdf pgs. 6&7}

and ends the book proclaiming:

God has implanted in mankind also all that is necessary to enable it to accomplish its destinies. There is a providential social physiology, as well as a providential human physiology. The social organs are constituted so as to enable them to develop harmoniously in the grand air of liberty. Away, then, with quacks and organizers! Away with their rings, and their chains, and their hooks, and their pincers! Away with their artificial methods! Away with their social laboratories, their governmental whims, their centralization, their tariffs, their universities, their State religions, their inflationary or monopolizing banks, their limitations, their restrictions, their moralizations, and their equalization by taxation! And now, after having vainly inflicted upon the social body so many systems, let them end where they ought to have begun—reject all systems, and try liberty—liberty, which is an act of faith in God and in His work.

^{The Law, pg. 55, pdf pg. 66}

My point is that while the critics of this book are ignorant of the book that inspired The Tuttle Twins Learn About The Law, the author of the book, Connor Boyack, is not. He adapted the ideas of The Law very well into a story that can help children understand the importance of their rights, the joys of liberty, the danger of government power, the evils of taxation, and the way that a free society functions. These seem like big concepts, and they are, but this book introduces those ideas in a manner that is both entertaining for children and at a level which they can comprehend.

In another particularly amusing review, the reviewer is horrified that The Tuttle Twins Learn About The Law portrays taxation as “legalized plunder,” that the government is full of bullies, and that people want to use the law to steal from others to benefit themselves. This is a good example of a serious problem most of these critics suffer from. They are totally ignorant of the difference between the law and the Law (i.e. man-made law versus Natural Law), and therefore are unable to often even comprehend what Bastiat (and Boyack after him) are talking about. While it is undoubtedly true that the reviewer in question is really suffering from a particularly powerful case propaganda dissonance, the anxiety and shock created when the difference between what you’ve been indoctrinated to believe and what you’re encountering in the real world is so great that it overwhelms your ability to think rationally, the real issue here is that the review simply doesn’t understand makes ideals of property and liberty or of Bastiat specifically.

On the dangers of legalized plunder and the desire by the masses to legalize plunder so that they benefit by stealing from others, Bastiat wrote:

Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter — by peaceful or revolutionary means — into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.

Woe to the nation when this latter purpose prevails among the mass victims of lawful plunder when they, in turn, seize the power to make laws! Until that happens, the few practice lawful plunder upon the many, a common practice where the right to participate in the making of law is limited to a few persons. But then, participation in the making of law becomes universal. And then, men seek to balance their conflicting interests by universal plunder. Instead of rooting out the injustices found in society, they make these injustices general. As soon as the plundered classes gain political power, they establish a system of reprisals against other classes. They do not abolish legal plunder. (This objective would demand more enlightenment than they possess.) Instead, they emulate their evil predecessors by participating in this legal plunder, even though it is against their own interests.

^{The Law, pgs. 6-7, pdf pgs. 17-18}

In 1850, Bastiat understood truths about human nature and the dangers of allowing the government the power to seize wealth and property through taxation that many today, as exemplified by this reviewer, find so hard to comprehend, to even process. Their very visceral reactions to and rejections of Bastiat’s wisdom are loud testimonies of the necessity of The Tuttle Twins Learn About The Law. Something is needed to introduce children to the ideals and values of liberty and a peaceful society before they are indoctrinated by decades of government sponsored education that trains them to be subservient to their political overlords. Otherwise, they will end up like their indoctrinated parents, trapped in political cults and unable to see how parasitical and poisonous the political system has become.

If I have only one criticism here it is that Boyack hedged his argument by having Fred tell the twins that “bad guys can become part of the government,” (Twins, pg. 26) when the truth of the matter is that 99.9% of all people involved in the government are bad guys and the more astounding thing is that sometimes, rarely, a good person can be found in the government. When you’re talking about an organization that claims the violent power to beat, cage, or kill you in order to terrorize you into obey it, that organization is the bad guy. The shocker is that someone could be part of it and not be a bad guy. But ultimately this is a minor criticism of what is otherwise a spot on book that both does justice to its inspiration and shares Bastiat’s work and ideas with a whole new generation.

My Children’s Thoughts

Part of our daily exercise has to do with writing sentences. Summarizing what we have read in the Tuttle Twins book that we are reading has become a regular part of that practice. It was particularly easy to do for this book because the twins actively take nots on what Fred is telling them and you can see their notes in Elijah Stanfield‘s excellent artwork for the book. I include a picture of these notes below so that you can see some of the main ideas covered in the book.

Final Thoughts

One review on Amazon asserted that the Tuttle twins, “are almost cult like in their mannerisms and it’s unrelistic [sic]. I have good kids, but they can’t relate to these characters at all.” While it is true the story is a bit simplistic – which is not a bad thing in a children’s book – especially the first book in a series by a new author of children’s books, the idea that someone would think that well-behaved siblings who get along together and respect those around them is “cult like” or “unrealistic” is just bizarre and ridiculous. Perhaps believing well-behaved children are a myth acts as a panacea for this parent of “good kids” and the many like her who imagine themselves to be “good parents,” also. My children, who are right in the age range for these books, love these books and relate to the characters and story. One child insisted on pretending to be one of the Tuttle twins, writing in his notebook the same things that Ethan and Emily wrote in their notebooks in the story. This in turn generated some great discussions about the main points of the book and how we could see them in our lives. It seems like we discover new ideas every time we reread the book, and we have read it several times now.

In conclusion, I highly suggest you purchase The Tuttle Twins Learn About The Law. It isn’t the best book in the series because, like every great book series, so far every sequel has been better than the preceding one. But The Tuttle Twins Learn About The Law is still far ahead of most children’s books, introducing them to relevant, meaningful, and complex ideas in ways that they can understand in a story that they will want to read again and again with article that is distinctive and enjoyable.