Little Women vs. Treasure Island
On my family's road trips, we listen to audio books, to pass the time, and to amuse my wife and I and our children. We've taken a few trips in the last few weeks, and on them we listened to Little Women by Louisa May Alcott , and Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson . Both of these books were among my favorites when I was a boy, and it's a pleasure now to share them with my children. When I read a book, I'm always sensitive to how it is trying to form me, especially how it's trying to form my worldview and my morals. I know that literature is not chiefly meant to be didactic (indeed, extremely didactic literature is boring) or like a work of philosophy, but is meant to be a thing of beauty. Nevertheless, one of the great extrinsic effects of literature is that it teaches us, it forms us, preferably without our even noticing. Human beings are called to greatness. My heart resonates before those books that show me this greatness. There is a place for books tha...