New Releases by Robert Coles

''I KNOW WHERE I''VE BEEN: A YEAR LONG JOURNEY OF SELF DISCOVERY'' follows the story of the author, Robert M. Coles, and his determination to see and experience the world while reflecting on his childhood growing up in the conservative Bible Belt. With a blend of humor, emotion, and vivid storytelling, ''I KNOW WHERE I''VE BEEN'' will inspire cravings of adventure and grand-momma''s sweet tea.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Children of Crisis, a profound examination of how listening to stories promotes learning and self-discovery. As a professor emeritus at Harvard University, a renowned child psychiatrist, and the author of more than forty books, including The Moral Intelligence of Children, Robert Coles knows better than anyone the transformative power of learning and literature on young minds. In this "persuasive" book ( The New York Times Book Review), Coles convenes a virtual symposium of college, law, and medical school students to explore the phenomenon of storytelling as a source of values and character. Here are transcriptions of classroom conversations in which Coles and his students discuss the impact of particular works of literature on their moral development. Here also are Coles''s intimate personal reflections on his experiences in the civil rights movement, his child psychiatry practice, and his interactions with his own literary mentors including William Carlos Williams and L.E. Sissman. The life lessons learned from these stories are of special resonance to doctors and teachers looking to apply them in classroom and clinical environments. The rare public intellectual to be honored with a MacArthur Award, a Presidential Medal of Freedom, and a National Humanities Medal, Robert Coles is a true national treasure, and The Call of Stories is, in the words of National Book Award winner Walker Percy, "Coles at his wisest and best."

No writer or public intellectual of our era has been as sensitive to the role of faith in the lives of ordinary Americans as Robert Coles. Though not religious in the conventional sense, Coles is unparalleled in his astute understanding and respect for the relationship between secular life and sacredness, which cuts across his large body of work. Drawing inspiration from figures like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dorothy Day, and Simone Weil, Coles’s extensive writings explore the tug of war between faith and doubt. As Coles himself admits, the “back-and-forthness between faith and doubt is the story of my life.” These thirty-one thought-provoking essays are drawn from Coles’s weekly column in the Catholic publication America. In them, he turns his inquisitive lens on a range of subjects and issues, from writers and painters to his recent reading and film viewing, contemporary events and lingering controversies, recollections of past and present mentors, events of his own daily life, and ordinary encounters with students, patients, neighbors, and friends. Addressing moral questions openly and honestly with a rare combination of rectitude and authorial modesty, these essays position Coles as a preeminent, durable, and trusted voice in the continuing national conversation over religion, civic life, and moral purpose.

"Excellent" poetry and prose about physicians and their patients, by Raymond Carver, Kay Redfield Jamison, Rachel Naomi Remen, and more ( Library Journal). A Life in Medicine collects stories, poems, and essays by and for those in the healing profession, who are struggling to keep up with the science while staying true to the humanitarian goals at the heart of their work. Organized around the central themes of altruism, knowledge, skill, and duty, the book includes contributions from well-known authors, doctors, nurses, practitioners, and patients. Provocative and moving pieces address what it means to care for a life in a century of unprecedented scientific advances, examining issues of hope and healing from both ends of the stethoscope. "An anthology of lasting appeal to those interested in medicine, well-written literature, and a sympathetic understanding of human life." — Booklist

Do you find yourself asking "Whose life is it anyway?" Parenting today has come to resemble a relentless to-do list. Even parents with the best intentions strive to micro-manage every detail of their kids'' lives and live in constant fear that their child will under-perform in any area--academic, social, athletic. Lists and schedules, meetings and appointments invade our every moment and the need to be the best dominates--and undermines--our own sense of self as well as our children''s. In their groundbreaking new book The Over-Scheduled Child, renowed child psychiatrist Alvin Rosenfeld, M.D., and longtime family-issues journalist Nicole Wise combine personal and professional experience to take action against what they see as our overeager pursuit of perfection. The clear, comforting steps they prescribe to attack this rampant phenomenon will promote healthier and happier children and revitalize the parenting experience.

For months six-year-old Ruby Bridges must confront the hostility of white parents when she becomes the first African American girl to integrate Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans in 1960.

From ancient times to the present day, here are indispensable insights on political power and leadership as expressed in the novels, plays, and poetry of the world’s greatest artists and intellectuals. Adapted from a course taught at Harvard by Pulitzer Prize—winning author Robert Coles, Political Leadership features scenes, stories, and speeches that pierce to the core of how and why some lead and others follow. In Felix Holt, the Radical, George Eliot observes that progressive reformers can be even more self-serving than their conservative counterparts; in The Prime Minister, Anthony Trollope suggests that honest men must cope with the corruption of politics–or leave leadership entirely to the crooked; and the works of Nadine Gordimer and George Orwell reveal that those who overturn tyrants often envy their power and repeat their mistakes. Anyone trying to understand today’s confused and violent world will be both challenged and inspired by this unique and important collection.

A groundbreaking study of the impact of current events on the lives and minds of children from the Pulitzer Prize-winning child psychiatrist. Most parents teach their children the lessons and skills they need to function in the world while trying to shield them from the harsher realities of life. But long before children are considered ready to face the complications of the real world, they are learning truths and perspectives most adults imagine are beyond them. Child psychiatrist and author of The Spiritual Life of Children, Robert Coles traveled the globe for more than a decade, from Northern Ireland to Nicaragua, South Africa to Southeast Asia, across the United States and beyond, conducting in-depth interviews with children about their cultures, ideologies, national pride, and political knowledge. He learned that the greater challenges, traumas, conflicts, and issues of the world around them find their way into children''s impressionable minds and play a crucial role in their development. Robert Coles'' unique and groundbreaking research sheds much-needed light on the psychology of childhood, revolutionizing both professional and personal understanding of humans'' formative years. "Robert Coles is to the stories that children have to tell what Homer was to the tale of the Trojan War." — The New York Times Book Review

Combines prose by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Coles with full page tritone images spanning 150 years of photography from artists including Lewis Hine, Dorothea Lange, and Marion Post Wolcott.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The question is more relevant now than ever before: what makes someone a moral person? Child psychiatrist and Harvard professor Robert Coles has dedicated much of his life to exemplifying, teaching, and writing about the moral life. Here, Coles illuminates the ways in which children become moral or not so moral adults, drawing on case studies, talks with parents, visits to nurseries and classrooms, and interviews with children. No subject could be more important and more timely—for all Americans, but especially for parents. In the tradition of such bestsellers as Cultural Literacy and Emotional Intelligence, The Moral Intelligence of Children identifies a new type of intelligence essential for success and fulfillment in life. It will be used by parents and teachers for years to come as the authoritative guide to children''s moral development.

Investigates the nature of documentary work, arguing that the work of an observer is not only to represent, but also to interpret reality, and uses examples from literature and photography to show how the observers'' personal frame of reference has influenced his or her work.

This 224-page book begins with several examinations of what is known about the spiritual and moral life of at-risk youth and then presents four cultural perspectives of spirituality. The final four essays move from theory to practice as a teacher, two ministers, and a religious education director offer concrete strategies for affecting the spiritual lives of at-risk youth."--Pub. desc.

In this book, Coles explores the concept of idealism and why it necessary to the individual and society.

Essays, 1987-1992 -- That red wheelbarrow -- Times of surrender.

Robert Coles is a psychiatrist with a novelist''s sensibilities. ""Of course everything I come up with,"" he says, ""novelists have known beforehand.""These twenty-three interviews selected from hundreds that Coles has given disclose not only an illustrious physician trained in pediatrics and psychoanalysis but also a sage whose compassion for children and suffering seems boundless. In focusing on a man known mainly as an eminent psychiatrist and author of The Spiritual Life of Children and more than fifty other books, this collection is a departure from the other books in the Literary Conversations Series. By no means is Coles best known as a writer of belles lettres, as are other figures in this series. Yet his varied critical insights and the critical authority with which he approaches literary subjects have enriched American literature. Here through the prism of his medical and literary training Coles''s conversations reveal his imposing moral vision. As he ranges with penetrating wisdom over many subjects--children, literature, teaching, psychiatry, family--he explores the cultural, social, and intellectual dimensions of our lives.

""When I recall all those pictures I have seen drawn (and discussed), I am reminded, yet again, how earnestly and strenuously children struggle to comprehend the world, to seek out its beauties and mysteries and terrors."" "For more than three decades, the renowned child psychiatrist Robert Coles has investigated the inner lives of children through their expressive words and pictures. His beautiful and revealing new book - his first devoted entirely to children''s drawings - distills his insights into the ways children from all over the world disclose their deepest convictions, feelings, and dreams with crayon, paint, and pencil." "The fifty full-color drawings in Their Eyes Meeting the World were created by boys and girls under ten from richly diverse backgrounds. Here is artwork by children urban and rural, Christian and Jewish and Muslim, children from the United States and from various other nations. In the company of Dr. Coles, we meet Helen, a ten-year-old dying of leukemia, and Ruby, the sole black child in a newly desegregated school. These are children who draw with profound seriousness and passion, and from their pictures Dr. Coles sensitively interprets what matters most in their lives, always attentive to the influence of race, class, region, and historical moment. Most important, he uses the visual worlds children represent to gain entry into their moral, religious, and spiritual lives." "It was the poet-physician William Carlos Williams who offered the wisdom that guides Robert Coles''s observations of children. "Look at them, looking," he gently advised, "their eyes meeting the world." In place of abstract analysis, Dr. Coles relies on the concreteness of art; he demonstrates with empathy and respect how eloquently children can use color and form to speak from the heart, mind, and soul."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

For 30 years Robert Coles has been talking and listening to children all over the world and recording their responses to crises, to hardship and sorrow and to moral and political pressure. In this one of eight volumes in his Pulitzer Prize-winning series, Children of Crisis, he speaks to and for the religious and spiritual lives of children, conveying their views of salvation and righteousness, their experience of God and their ways of understanding the ultimate meaning of their own lives.

Poems deal with the world''s ambiguities, randomness, luck, fate, and the accidental.

For three decades, Robert Coles has followed Eliot''s invitation. He has studied and reflected upon Simone Weil - as writer, social critic, radical, and mystic - and upon the enigmas of her strange, brief life.

An American undercover special on HBO - Cover.Incluedes index.