Sophie's World

Sophie’s World is a novel by Jostein Gaarder. Other books by Jostein Gaarder are The Frog Castle, The Solitaire Mystery, and Maya. Although I have no idea what these books are about and how they relate to Sophie’s World. This book is a mix between a mystery tale and a documentary about the history of philosophy. A girl named Sophie starts taking a philosophy course with a strange man she’s never met. But then strange things start to happen, and Sophie must use the philosophy she’s learning to figure out what’s going on. The theme of this book is, basically, to think outside the box. This means that everyone should try and unravel all the mysteries of life using their own senses instead of just sticking with what they’ve learned and been raised to think.

Sophie’s World is about when a 14-year old Norwegian girl named Sophie Amundsen finds a letter with two questions on it: “Who are you?” and “Where does the world come from?” These questions are just an introduction to a letter by letter course about the history of philosophy. The philosophy starts to intrigue Sophie and make her think about things a lot more. Her mom and her friend Joanna start to notice this, because it does start effecting Sophie’s legitimate normal behavior. At first, the unknown teacher is only sending letters. But eventually the teacher, who’s name is Alberto Knox, and Sophie start meeting each other in person to continue the course. But things start to get weird when Sophie asks Alberto about letters she’s receiving that are actually supposed to go to another girl named Hilde Moller Knag from her father. At first, this is just perceived as a weird mistake by whoever is sending the letters. But when Sophie uses the philosophy she’s learning, she finds out the letters are no mistake and the truth behind everything she knows is a lot different than she or anyone else would expect.

I like this book, but not in the same way I like other books. Usually in terms of entertainment, I like books with fantasized worlds, completely made up stories, and lots of action. That’s not the way Sophie’s World is. Although it’s classified as a mystery novel and has some fantasized elements, it’s more of a book about learning and becoming smarter. Like I said before, it’s the theme of this book is to think outside of the box that is your world that you were raised in. It makes you ask questions about the universe and life, because after all that’s what philosophy is. I like this book because it made me much smarter and more appreciative of how I can use my own mind. If you just feel like reading a book that follows the same fantasized story formula of other typical books, movies, and video games, then don’t read this. But if you want to read a story that will teach you things and help you have better thinking skills, than don’t even consider not reading this.

Book Review by Alex O.