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

by Vigen Guroian

Overview

From Pinocchio to The Chronicles of Narnia to Charlotte's Web, classic children's tales have shaped generations of young people. In recent years, homeschoolers and new classical schools have put these masterpieces of children's literature at the center of their curricula. And these stories continue to be embraced by parents, students, and educators alike.

In Tending the Heart of Virtue, Vigen Guroian illuminates the power of classic tales and their impact on the moral imagination. He demonstrates how these stories teach the virtues through vivid depictions of the struggle between good and evil, while he also unveils components of the good, the true, and the beautiful in plot and character. With clarity and elegance, Guroian reads deeply into the classic stories. He demonstrates how these stories challenge and enliven the moral imaginations of children. And he shows the reader how to get "inside" of classic stories and communicate their lessons to the child.

For more than two decades Tending the Heart of Virtue has been embraced by parents, guardians, and teachers for whom the stories it discusses are not only beloved classics but repositories of moral wisdom. This revised and expanded second edition includes three new chapters in which Guroian interprets such stories as Hans Christian Andersen's The Ugly Duckling, the Grimms' Cinderella, and John Ruskin's The King of the Golden River. The concluding bibliographical essay has also been expanded.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195384314
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/14/2023
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	88,718
Product dimensions:	8.27(w) x 5.52(h) x 0.76(d)

About the Author

Until his retirement in 2015, Vigen Guroian was Professor of Religious Studies in Orthodox Christianity at the University of Virginia. He is now a Permanent Senior Fellow of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, Senior Fellow at the Center on Law and Religion at Emory University, Distinguished Fellow of the John Jay Institute, and Senior Fellow at the Trinity Forum. He also is on the faculty of Memoria College online and is the author of ten books including The Orthodox Reality: Culture, Theology, and Ethics in the Modern World.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface to the Second Edition
Introduction

1 Awakening the Moral Imagination
2 On Becoming a Real Human Child: Pinocchio
3 Love and Immortality in The Velveteen Rabbit and The Little Mermaid
4 Friends and Mentors in The Wind in the Willows, Charlottes Web, and Bambi
5 Evil and Redemption in The Snow Queen and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
6 Heroines of Faith and Courage: Princess Irene in The Princess and the Goblin and Lucy in Prince Caspian
7 The Triumph of Beauty in The Nightingale and The Ugly Duckling
8 The Goodness of Goodness: The Grimms' Cinderella and John Ruskin's The King of the Golden River
9 Obedience and the Path to Perfection in George MacDonald's The Wise Woman: A Double Story

Conclusion: A Bibliographical Essay
Notes
Index

What People are Saying About This

Jim Trelease

Not since Chesterton have we seen such an open, affectionate, and brilliant analysis of fairy and fantasy tales -- Jim Trelease, author, The Read-Aloud Handbook

Gregory Wolfe

A lucid, illuminating, and timely interpretation of the classics of children's literature. -- Gregory Wolfe, co-author, Books That Build Character

Editorial Reviews

"We need this book because we need children's books, but we have forgotten how to read them. Guroian writes for humbled giants who want to understand how stories develop the virtues and nurture the souls of children—and their parents" — Andrew Kern, President, CiRCE Institute

"It's hard not to treasure this book. Guroian conveys profound moral and spiritual truths with impressive scholarship and startling insight in prose as pure and lovely as a child's tale." — David V. Hicks, author of The Emperor's Handbook

"Not only is this book a delight to read, it will also help educators and parents navigate the principles that make reading the classic stories to children so vital to their development. This is a must-read for religious or secular educators and parents." — Carroll Smith, Founder, Charlotte Mason Institute

"Tending the Heart of Virtue...promises the surest fruits for Christian teachers and parents, although his focus on mythopoeic writers (including C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald) and the moral imagination will draw a larger audience." — Sarah O'Dell, Mythopoeic Society

"Guroian's book remains a must-read for those interested in children's literature." — Choice

From the Publisher

This book deserves a wide audience and a place on the shelves of parents and non-parents alike.... Guroian has written a book that itself appeals to both heart and mind.
— First Things

Joshua P. Hochschild

Guroian is an Eastern Orthodox theologian whose intention is to help busy parents make the right choices of "what books and stories to read with children." But this hasn't the content of William Bennett's anthology, and it's scarcely a guide in the way that Noel Perrin's recent first-rate volume, A Child's Delight, is. Guroian devotes the bulk of the text to explaining the Christian (ergo "virtuous") underpinnings and symbology of a few works by Hans Christian Andersen, C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald. The problem is he never gives a sense of artistic proportion or shows how or why classic stories are more likely to "[a]waken a Child's Moral Imagination" than a Spiderman comic. Ironically, he points out that "[m]ere instruction in morality is not sufficient to nurture the virtues. It might even backfire, especially when the presentation is heavily exhortative and the pupil's will is coerced." His discussions are often just that, loudly demonstrating nothing so much as his own facility in detecting biblical allusions. He finds that the themes of love and friendship in Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio and Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows owe their sublimity to Christianity rather than their authors' humanity. Having damned critics Roger Sale and Jack Zipes for discerning faults in Andersen's "The Little Mermaid," he says of the story's ending that we must ask ourselves: "why would we want our children or ourselves to be content with [300 years of mer-life] when [Christian] immortality has been proffered?" Unfortunately, such arrogance pervades Guroian's tome. The concluding bibliographic essay is dismally short of recommendations. (May)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The word virtue in the title, as well as the reference in the introduction to William J. Bennett and Russell Kirk, bear witness to the author's position as a conservative and a member of the religious right. His aim in this intelligent and persuasive book is to encourage parents in their efforts to "form moral character in the young" through stories that are rich in moral messages and Christian mystic vision. He finds these qualities in works by Hans Christian Andersen, C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, and classic 19th-century and early 20th-century literary fairy tales with themes of good and evil, sin and redemption, faith and mystic love. As a teacher of children's literature, he is well aware of educational programs propounding values clarification, and literary critics who approach stories from secular, social scientific, and psychological viewpoints, but what he seeks are works that embody "universally binding moral norms" with values that are rooted in God. Not surprisingly, Guroian finds these qualities in stories of the last century, when education was a matter of building character rather than acquiring information and practicing critical thinking. This scholarly yet readable book will provide assurance and inspiration to adults who look for titles that are strong in what he calls "moral imagination." His discussions of the religious and ethical assumptions on which the works of these classic authors are founded will, for teachers and literary critics, provide a useful corrective to postmodern reliance on secular and psychological analysis of all texts. His is a responsible voice for the value of tradition and of religion.-Shirley Wilton, Ocean County College, Toms River, NJ

School Library Journal

A little jewel of a book on how great fairy tales and other children's stories, with their vivid myths and metaphors, can morally educate and refine young people. Theologian Guroian engages in a close and sensitive reading of about a dozen children's tales, including such well-known ones as The Little Mermaid and Pinocchio and such largely forgotten ones as The Princess and the Goblin by the 19th-century British writer George MacDonald. He notes that contemporary þvalues education," with its often dry presentation of moral principles, has at best limited appeal to children. In contrast, the great children's stories graphically and memorably present charactersþhuman, animal, fantastical, and otherþthat embody the struggles and joys of being human. Their focus is on such enduring themes as deep friendship and love, suffering and solitude, fear and courage, empathy and the "leap of faith." Guroian writes crisply and perceptively about these and related matters, such as this observation about love, faith, and tolerance in The Princess and Goblin: "the hard truth [is] that we cannot make even those whom we love believe, and that if we truly love them, then we must permit them to come freely to that belief." His interpretations sometimes may prove overly christological for many non-Christian readers. For example, he claims that a "red-rose willow tree" that the Little Mermaid plants þalludes to blood and tears and the passion of the cross," a symbolic link that seems far too theologically freighted for most children. Still, this is a book whose appeal goes far beyond the religiously minded; it will interest parents and teachers of all backgrounds who want to helptheir children to both grow imaginatively and achieve moral depth.

Kirkus Reviews