Letters to My Children

Book excerpt: A collection of short letters, most centring on a powerful story from the author's life, that convey core values and attitudes from a father to his child. Topics addressed include death, right and wrong, thinking about God, cheating, failure, popularity, studying, sex, self-esteem, prayer, family relationships, materialism, and marriage. One typical letter addresses the question of how to be a friend to unpopular kids at school and tells the moving story of the time the author was told he should ask the girl with polio to dance. Many of these letters are rooted in childhood and adolescence, others in youth and early marriage. They speak honestly and engagingly to both the young and to those who are trying, the best they can, to raise them. Read these stories with your children or by yourself and smile in recognition as you remember your own struggles to understand the world and your place in it. Then, as the afterward suggests, tell a few stories of your own.