|
Books to Grow By (or Books to Go Buy): Character and Virtue in Children's Literature
Lecture series given February 2009
by Patricia Owen
Listen to
Books to Grow By (or Books to Go Buy): Character and Virtue in Children's Literature
by Patricia Owen
Week One, Feb. 2, 2009 (21 mb mp3)
Week Two, Feb. 9, 2009 (24.3 mb mp3)
Week Three, Feb. 16, 2009 (27.8 mb mp3)
Week Four, Feb. 23, 2009 (31.4 mb mp3)
Do children really need books to grow and flourish?
How do stories work 'under the radar' to exert a profound and enduring influence on children's development? What is it about the activity of reading that is qualitatively different from the myriad of exciting entertainment options claiming our children's time and attention?
This lecture series will look at these and other questions, delving into the essential effect of good books on language and emotion, depth of thought, moral constancy and decision-making, and family and spiritual identity. The series will discuss critical skills for reviewing and choosing excellent books for our kids, and look at book lists and resource guides, and lots and lots of good books.
To turn away with an indifferent shrug from helping children to choose books is not good enough. If anything goes, nothing matters. And children's literature does matter, so intensely, that we adults ought to argue ferociously among ourselves about it. We ought to be willing to examine our own tastes and compare them rigorously with the informed opinions of others.
-- Michele Landsberg, Reading for the Love of It
 Patricia Owen holds a master's degree from the Center for the Study of Children's Literature at Simmons College in Boston. Her bachelor's degrees are in German literature and French Immerson Elementary Education. Before she and her husband, John, had their three children, she worked as an elementary school teacher, in a children's bookstore, and as a librarian. During her studies at Simmons College she was an intern at The Horn Book
Magazine.
Back to the home page
|
