The Soul and Spirit of Morality in Sudha Murthy’s Select Short Story Books for Children

Abstract

The soul and spirit of morality have been transmitted to children from generation to generation through stories.  Stories play a significant role in the mental growth and character-building of children. Storybooks are a wonderful source of inspiration and lay a strong foundation for their future life.  Reading storybooks helps children to increase their confidence, handle emotions, and cope up with problems. It also develops their imagination power, language skills, and learning.  The multi-faceted prolific children’s author Sudha Murthy’s contribution to the field of children’s literature is a hallmark in Indian English literature.  Her children’s stories dealt with the importance of family bonds and concern towards society and fellow beings.  The characters in her stories help the children to understand our culture and tradition. The paper tries to analyze three such books of children's stories by Sudha Murthy in the light of the theories of ‘tabula rasa’ and ‘Kohlberg's Theory of moral judgment’. The paper focuses on How I Taught My Grandmother to Read and Other Stories, Grandma’s Bag of Stories, and The Magic Drum and Other Favourite Stories’ and the moral values inculcated in them.