Cultivating Heart and Character: Educating for Life's Most Essential Goals. (Professional Books).

CULTIVATING HEART AND CHARACTER: Educating for Life's Most Essential Goals. T. Devine, J. Ho Seuk, & A. Wilson, Eds. Chapel Hill, NC: Character Development Publishing, 2001. 484 pp. $22.95. Intended for a broad range of readers (educators, parents, youth workers, and policymakers), this book offers ideas and practical suggestions for fostering character development in young people and adults alike. Using research and tenets of both Eastern and Western cultures, the contributors provide a wealth of anecdotes, programs, and examples.

The book argues that the framework for character education is built through maturity, long-lasting and enriching relationships, and contributions to the community. The first section defends love (and the heart) as being at the core of character development, and defines the family as the fundamental place to cultivate the heart.

The second section of the book describes the four spheres of love: child, sibling, spouse, and parent. Marriage (and thus family) is presented as the most important building block of good character. The last section covers the importance of abstinence in adolescence, issues of monogamy, sex education, substance abuse, and conflict resolution.

Although this book covers a great deal of ground, much of it is repetitious; the third section could be a book by itself. Furthermore, in a society that has many family configurations, it is difficult to accept the book's continuous statement that the best family is the nuclear one. The authors make very broad statements about what is right and wrong. For example, we are told that society is most at risk when the middle class abandons the tenet of lifelong monogamy and "begins to imitate the racy lifestyles among the class above and below them." Consequently, this book is most suited as a reference and idea sparker. Reviewed by Sharon A. Roth, Adjunct Faculty, Greenfield Community College, Greenfield, MA