New Releases by Robert Coles

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

Flannery O''Connor''s South offers a forceful analysis, both literary and philosophical, of Flannery O''Connor''s life and literature. First published in 1980, this study draws upon Robert Coles'' personal experiences in the South during the civil rights movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s, his brief acquaintance with Flannery O''Connor, and his careful readings of her works. The voices and gestures of the people Coles met in the South help illuminate the social scene that influenced one of the region''s most valuable and interesting writers.

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.

A portrait of the life and career of Anna Freud.

""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

A look at faith through the voices of children from varied religious backgrounds, by the Pulitzer-winning author of The Moral Intelligence of Children. A New York Times Notable Book What do children think about when they consider God, Heaven and Hell, the value of life in the here and now, and the inevitability of death? Child psychiatrist, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, and Harvard professor Robert Coles spent thirty years interviewing hundreds of children—from South America and Europe to Africa and the Middle East—who are developing concepts of faith even as they struggle to understand its contradictions. Be they Catholic or Protestant, Jewish children from Boston, Pakistani children in London, agnostics, Native Americans, or young Christians in the American South, they offer honest, enlightening and sometimes startling ideas of a spiritual existence. A Hopi girl who knows for a fact that we are resurrected as birds; an African American child who believes God exists as a hurricane to “blow away” drug dealers; a young Christian who needs his faith to cope with the death of his sister, lest she be just “a big heartache to us till the day we die”; and a Tennessee child who rationalizes his belief by admitting that “if there''s no God, that''s all there is, ashes.” The Spiritual Life of Children is “a remarkable book. The generosity of vision that characterizes Dr. Coles''s enterprise enables him to create a climate where words of great beauty and truthfulness can be spoken.” —The New York Times

"One of those rare ''religious'' books with enormous general appeal, Harvard diary records Cole''s own soul-searching from 1981 to the present day. He shares with the reader his ongoing questions (which don''t always have clear answers), his struggles, insights, observations, and experiences on issues that occupy his mind and heart." - Front flap.

Robert Coles first met Dorothy Day over thirty-five years ago when, as a medical student, he worked in one of her Catholic Worker soup kitchens. He remained close to this inspiring and controversial woman until her death in 1980. His book, an intellectual and psychological portrait, confronts candidly the central puzzles of her life: the sophisticated Greenwich Village novelist and reporter who converted to Catholicism; the single mother who raised her child in a most unorthodox ”family”; her struggles with sexuality, loneliness, and pride; her devout religious conservatism coupled with radical politics. This intense portrait is based on many years of conversation and correspondence, as well as tape-recorded interviews.

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

Epilogues added to these new editions of two acclaimed works bring up to date the Coles'' stunning, real-life portrayals of ten diverse women--an Appalachian housewife, a dance hall "girl", a bank teller, a Pueblo Indian photographer, a civil rights activist, and others.

Superbly presented, composed of striking photographs by Alex Harris and a text assembled from the language of the old people themselves... in the Spanish-speaking communities of New Mexico. -- New Republic

"One of those rare ''religious'' books with enormous general appeal, Harvard diary records Cole''s own soul-searching from 1981 to the present day. He shares with the reader his ongoing questions (which don''t always have clear answers), his struggles, insights, observations, and experiences on issues that occupy his mind and heart." - Front flap.

Photobook chiefly containing over 100 photos of children''s street drawings and messages, taken between 1938 and 1948. Each photograph was selected and arranged by the photographer.

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

A collection of black-and-white photographs by early twentieth-century photographer Dorothea Lange, best known for her pictures of Depression-era America, featuring selections drawn from throughout her career; with an essay that provides information about Lange''s life and work.

Includes Alaskan poems, p.42-51.

Examines three groups of "disadvantaged" children from Eskimo, Chicano, and Indian cultures.