As the popularity of William Bennett\'s Book of Virtues attests, parents are turning more and more to children\'s literature to help instill values in their kids.
About the Author Vigen Guroian is Professor of Religious Studies, University of Virginia..
At the same time, he so persuasively evokes the enduring charm of these familiar works that many readers will be inspired to reread their favorites and explore those they may have missed.
Throughout, Guroian highlights the classical Moral virtues such as courage, goodness, and honesty, especially as they are understood in traditional Christianity.
We are made to face the unvarnished truth about ourselves, and what kind of people we want to be.
Character and the virtues are depicted compellingly in these stories; the virtues glimmer as if in a looking glass, and wickedness and deception are unmasked of their pretensions to goodness and truth.
Examining a wide range of stories--from "Pinocchio" and "The Little Mermaid" to "Charlotte\'s Web," "The Velveteen Rabbit," "The Wind in the Willows," and the "Chronicles of Narnia"--he argues that these tales capture the meaning of morality through vivid depictions of the struggle between good and evil, in which characters must make difficult choices between right and wrong, or heroes and villains contest the very fate of imaginary worlds.
Guroian illuminates the complex ways in which fairy tales and fantasies educate the Moral Imagination from earliest childhood.
Now, in this elegantly written and passionate book, Vigen Guroian provides the perfect complement to books such as Bennett\'s, offering parents and teachers a much-needed roadmap to some of our finest children\'s stories.
As the popularity of William Bennett\'s Book of Virtues attests, parents are turning more and more to children\'s literature to help instill values in their kids
