"We need heroes, people who can inspire us, help shape us morally, spur us on to purposeful action — and from time to time we are called on to be those heroes, leaders for others, either in a small, day-to-day way, or on the world's larger stage. At this time in America, and in the rest of the world, we seem to need moral leadership especially, but the need for moral inspiration is ever present," writes Robert Coles, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of many books including The Moral Intelligence of Children.
The author's heroes are those who have had a positive and healing influence on others. Coles writes respectfully about Robert Kennedy, Dorothy Day, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Mahatma Gandhi, a Boston bus driver, and several civil rights activists including the remarkable African-American child Ruby Bridges. All of these moral leaders demonstrate courage, discernment, unpretentiousness, and flexibility.
Coles also believes that we can cultivate morality through reading great works of literature. He lauds the writings of William Shakespeare, Leo Tolstoy, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Joseph Conrad, George Eliot, and others. Coles, as always, keeps our eyes on the prize — "circles of human moral connectedness growing, touching, informing the lives of individuals and of the communities to which we belong."