Red Herring Mysteries Level 2 Workbook - Solving Mysteries through Critical Questioning (Grades 7-12)

I am using this product as a supplement to homeschooling my 6th grader. This is a great tool to encourage interaction while making dinner that helps her build critical thinking, logic, and reasoning skills. I'm a huge fan.

Answers to many of these riddles are such that no one could guess them...

Red Herring Mysteries were a staple of the Gifted classroom. I no longer teach, but remembered these well and purchased one for a nephew for Christmas. These mysteries encouraged critical and out of the box thinking.

While these should be enjoyable, they mostly make me (and the 6th grader for whom the book was purchased) gnash teeth in frustration. Random "gotcha" information that isn't at all available tends to change the facts and understanding of the various mysteries---nothing that can really be reasoned out (and learning better reasoning skills was the reason for purchase).

My son loves doing these daily in our homeschool! However, sometimes the answers are a little too detailed and outlandish.

These are super fun and get your child's brain working. Your own as well!

You think you have it figured out but then look at answer. The answers are extremely frustrating. Random info is used to solve these.I don't recommend these at all!

While there were one or two puzzles that worked, almost 99% of this book relied on completely unavailable information. For example:"No matter what the director tried, the actors still refused to perform. Why?"The answer is: The "actors" were sea lions who were performing at a marine life park. The park had been leased for the evening by a large corporation. The guests were all dressed in formal attire - women in white gowns and men in black tuxedoes. Hundreds of guests attended the special performance of the sea lion show. The sea lions came out for the beginning to f the show only to see an audience that had the same markings as killer whales, their most feared enemy. The sea lions scurried off the stage and no matter what the show's director tried, they refused to perform."I didn't paraphrase or make that up - it's actually in the book. How in the hell are you supposed to deduce "sea lions think they see killer whales," much less "park rented by a corporation that had all the women in white gowns and all the men in tuxedoes" from the given story?Another vague example:"The body of man clothed only in a swimsuit was found high up in a tree. Investigators were at first baffled but soon solved the mystery. What was their solution?"Dead guy in a swimsuit in a tree. Of all the possible answers, the one given in the back is, the guy is in a pine tree (huh?), there was a forest fire nearby (huh?), firefighting aircraft accidentally scooped up the guy who was swimming in a nearby body of water, and investigators figured this out when they discovered the victim died through drowning (huh?)How are you supposed to surmise he died through drowning? And where did you figure out he was in a pine tree? In a forest fire?Bad stories, terrible solutions. I normally find the Critical Thinking Co products a decent jumping off point for challenging gifted students but this one is a dud.