A defence of classic stories for children
By David Gibney, Mercator.
Book Review: Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child’s Moral Imagination, Vigen Guroian.
The world of children’s literature has grown increasingly formalised and lucrative in recent decades. In the publishing industry, it represents a unique market in its own right. Universities even offer seminars on the genre. And, for the lucky few who hit the right notes, it is highly profitable. J.K. Rowling, surely the wealthiest author in history, made her fortune writing primarily for children, not adults.
Prof. Vigen Guroian, however, eschews the humdrum of popularity and profitability in favour of the transcendent. In Tending the Heart of Virtue, he attempts to reappraise and re-centre the notion of a moral framework in literature for children.
This book is the second, expanded edition of the original, first published in 1998. That Guroian and Oxford University Press considered an updated edition worth the investment attests in itself to a hunger for the ideas and guidance contained therein. In western nations at least, education policy has evolved significantly since the nineties, sometimes in questionable directions.
In Ireland, the increasingly centralising tendencies of the Department of Education have led to flashpoints on various curricular fronts, one of the most recent being the government’s attempts to substantially revise the relationships and sexuality programme for primary and secondary schools, for example.
Despite the outward legitimacy of the rhetoric of consultation in the Department’s missives, however, news reports have indicated that some parents and school associations did not find their values reflected, and even found them undermined, by government and curriculum overreach. In this light, Guroian’s book is more relevant than ever.
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