Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Coles, Robert - Richard Bernstein (review date 27 January 1997)

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Richard Bernstein (review date 27 January 1997)

SOURCE: "Making Morality a Part of Growing Up," in New York Times Book Review, January 27, 1997, pp. 88-9.

[In the following review, Bernstein takes account of the qualities and failings of The Moral Intelligence of Children.]

Robert Coles, whose voluminous writings and positions as professor of psychiatry and medical humanities at the Harvard Medical School have made his name synonymous with wisdom about children, promises to render an important service in this latest of his many books. The dust jacket phrase puts it simply: "How to raise a moral child." And Dr. Coles asserts early on that his new book deals with "how we as adults, as mothers and fathers and schoolteachers and friends, give shape to the values of children as expressed in their behavior, their conduct; how we encourage them and instruct them to uphold in daily life one or another set of beliefs."

Dr. Coles no doubt...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Melvin J. Friedman (review date Fall 1982)
   2. Neil Postman (review date 19 January 1986)
   3. Katherine Paterson (review date 2 February 1986)
   4. Jonathan Kellerman (review date 9 February 1986)
   5. New Yorker (review date 10 February 1986)
   6. John Leo (review date 17 March 1986)
   7. Kenneth L. Woodward (review date 6 September 1987)
   8. Jeff Dietrich (review date 13 September 1987)
   9. Fitzhugh Mullan (review date 8 May 1988)
   10. Helen Bevington (review date 26 February 1989)
   11. Francis X. Rocca (review date March 1989)
   12. Iain Bamforth (review date 7-13 July 1989)
   13. Sanford Pinsker (essay date Summer 1989)
   14. Herbert Mitgang (review date 21 November 1990)
   15. Laura Sessions Stepp (review date 23 December 1990)
   16. The New Yorker (review date 7 January 1991)
   17. Virginia C. Hoch (review date 26 August-2 September 1992)
   18. A. J. S. (review date 1993)
   19. Michelle Huneven (essay date 3 October 1993)
   20. Robert A. Sirico (review date 15 November 1993)
   21. Gail Russell Chaddock (review date 9 December 1993)
   22. Ed Walraven (essay date 1994)
   23. Paulina F. Kernberg (review date October 1994)
   24. Richard Bernstein (review date 27 January 1997)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright