Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child's Moral Imagination

First published in 1987, "Tending The Heart Of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken A Child's Moral Imagination" by Vigen Guroian (Professor of Theology and Ethics, Loyola College, Baltimore, Maryland) illustrated and illuminates how fair tales and fantasies educate the moral imagination throughout childhood. Now in a new edition from Oxford University Press, a new generation of parents and teachers can benefit from what Professor Guroian has to say about the beneficial ethical and moral implications and embedded teachings in such literary classics as Pinocchio; The Velveteen Rabbit; The Little Mermaid; The Wind in the Willows; Charlotte's Web; Bambi; The Snow Queen; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; The Princess and the Goblin; and Prince Caspian. Of special note is Professor Guroian's bibliography essay that concludes this seminally informed and informative literary inquiry and study. "Tending The Heart Of Virtue" is a welcome and highly recommended addition to academic and community library reference collections and supplemental reading lists in the fields of Literary Studies, as well as Philosophy & Ethics.

Professor Guroian's latest work provides the reader with a challenging prescription for developing moral excellence. The framework of the Aristotleian notions of intellectual and moral virtue give an ancient and yet ever so modern perspective to his understanding of the practical science of ethics illuminated by fairy tales and modern children's literature. Those who are responsible for the young will do well to make frequent reference to this book.

This book is a classic "must read" for all parents who want to instill solid character into their children. Guroian reviews many of the "classic" fairy tales and reveals the unbelievable distortion that has occurred with modern day translations, abridged versions, and animated movies. Time after time, Guroian traces the same awful conversion from the original Christian virtues and values to the quicksand-like obsessions with physical beauty, romantic love, and self. Reading his book gives parent's the truth about why fairy tales are so important for "tending the heart of virtue" in their children. For children reading the original fairy tales, they will see themselves and the deeper reality of things, complete with good and evil components, in a framework of an interesting and powerfully written story. In subsequently reading the original Pinocchio (covered in the book) to my two boys (8 and 10); we were all absolutely "stunned" by Collodi's brilliance, his language, and the truth that this great classic reveals about ourselves.Don't miss this one. You and your children will benefit immensely.

When Vigen Guroian [veegun ga-ROY-un] set out to teach a class on children's literature to his undergraduate students at Loyola College in Maryland,he invited his daughter's fourth-grade class in for some of the discussions. But after a discussion of Pinocchio, the undergrads were shocked and embarrassed to find that the fourth-graders had understood the book better than they had. Why was this?The answer, Guroian says, is that we have neglected the development of the moral imagination. The college students literally were less capable of understanding the moral themes in the story of Pinocchio.As Guroian writes in his new book, Tending the Heart of Virtue, the undergrads noticed that the fourth-graders were better at grasping "the nature and source of Pinocchio's temptations and backsliding, and were less ready to excuse him for the behavior that got him into so much trouble and caused his father such grief."His students even began to suspect that "maybe they had lost something in growing up -- a sense of wonder that might have been better tended and retained" if they had been brought up reading books like Pinocchio. "Perhaps," Guroinan concludes, "the fourth graders they had met were actually nearer than they to the wellsprings of human morality and were better served by reading Pinocchio than they had been by taking a required college course in ethics."Guroian's new book is subtitled, How Classic Stories Awaken a Child's Moral Imagination, and in it he explains that children are born with a strong moral sense. They always want to know if a character in a story is good or bad. "This need to make moral distinctions," he says, "is a gift, a grace, that human beings are given at the start of their lives." But it is a gift that needs to be cultivated or it will atrophy and disappear.And that's exactly what's happening, as Guroian's experience with college students has proved. "Our society," Guroian warns, "is embracing an antihuman trinity of pragmatism, subjectivism, and cultural relativism that denies the existence of a moral sense or a moral law." And in this intellectual climate, the moral imagination is being starved.One of the best remedies can be found in classic literature. Moral education is best accomplished through stories, through depictions of courage and the other virtues, showing what they look like in action. A classic story like Pinocchio or Peter Pan or the Velveteen Rabbit communicates vital truths about what it is to be human. It teaches us what bravery is, how to resist temptation, how to practice love and self-sacrifice. A dry course on ethics simply cannot begin to bring these themes to life in the same way.Why not pick up a copy of Guroian's Tending the Heart of Virtue, and reacquaint yourself with classic children's literature, and read it to your children. Who knows? If you start early enough, by the time they're in college--even the most secular one imaginable--they jus