Mysteries of Life in Children's Literature

This most precious book is not a work of research or scholarship in the conventional academic sense. It is a book that is informed by many years of teaching the classics of children's literature to large numbers of students who are generally unfamiliar with this body of knowledge, a treasury of the world's perennial wisdom. In this book you will rediscover your own childhood and learn again to appreciate the true, the good, and the beautiful. It is a book that is is inspired from learning the art of simplicity and keeping alive the child in human naturethe appreciation of the gift of human life, the ability to wonder and imagine, the enjoyment of learning as a form of play through the delight of stories, and the clarity of seeing things truly as they are, that is, as good or evil, right or wrong, true or false. In an age that rejects moral absolutes and repudiates the whole idea of intrinsic evils, children's literature restores the lucid meaning of good and evil, beautiful and ugly, and normal and abnormal in categorical terms: "The king is naked!" This book is intended for those readers who have not forgotten their childhood or ceased to keep alive the child within them. In an era which profanes everything holy and innocent from the sanctity of a church to the sacredness of human life, children's literature illuminates the beauty of purity and innocence as something heavenly and angelic and depicts human life as a miraculous story. This book is also intended for the humble who have not been corrupted by intellectual pride or pseudo sophisticationfor the humble who can seek the kingdom of God like a child. Raising and caring for children are humble activities with repetitious chores and endless routine tasks from changing diapers to constant cooking and cleaning to repeating lessons in manners and morals. This book is also intended for Catholics, devout Christians, pious Jews, and people of good will from all persuasions who acknowledge the sacredness of life and the hand of Divine Providence in the ordinary experiences of daily life. Children's literature portrays a sacramental view of the world in which natural events and ordinary things signify supernatural realities. For children's classicsalong with Homer, Virgil, Dante and Shakespearebelong to that body of knowledge that Matthew Arnold described as "the best that has been thought and said." Just as it is the child in The Emperor's New Clothes who dares to announce the self-evident truth which everyone is afraid to utter"The king is naked"so too children's literature can reveal truths which escape the pundits and the professors. A treasure, illustrated, smyth-sewn, 60 lb. cream paper, hardcover, 200 pages.Kalpakgian, Mitchell is the author of 'Mysteries of Life in Children's Literature', published 2000 under ISBN 9780911845990 and ISBN 0911845992.