DOBRIN, Arthur 1943-

PERSONAL: Born August 22, 1943, in Brooklyn, NY; son of Moe (a truck driver) and Anne (Slavin) Dobrin; married Lyn Beth Fradkin (a writer of children's books, artist, and model), August 30, 1960; children: Eric Simba, Kikora Anana. Education: City College of the City University of New York, B.A., 1965; New York University, M.A., 1971; additional graduate study at Nathan Ackerman Family Institute, 1973-75. Religion: Ethical Humanist.

ADDRESSES: Home—613 Dartmouth St., Westbury, NY 11590. Office—Ethical Humanist Society, 38 Old Country Rd., Garden City, NY 11530.

CAREER: Poet. U.S. Peace Corps, volunteer in Kenya, 1965-67; Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island, Garden City, NY, leader, 1968-2001, leader emeritus, 2001—. Initiator of The Learning Tree (experimental school); summer director of Encampment for Citizenship, Great Falls, MT, and Tucson, AZ, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1972; director of Institute for Leadership Development, 1971-72; teacher at Westbury Experimental High School, 1973-74; Hofstra University's New School, associate professor of social science. Board member of Westbury League of Women Voters, 1974-75.

MEMBER: World Poetry Society, Amnesty International, American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (clinical member), Poetry Society of America, Human Subjects Review Committee of Long Island Jewish Hospital, Long Island Progressive Coalition (board member), Ethics Committee of Winthrop-University Hospital.

WRITINGS:

The Role of Cooperatives in the Development of Rural Kenya (monograph), Rutgers University Press, 1970.

(With Kenneth Briggs) Getting Married the Way You Want, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1974.

Little Heroes, Cross-Cultural Communications (Merrick, NJ), 1977.

Lace: Poetry from the Poor, Homeless, Aged, Physically and Emotionally Handicapped, Cross-Cultural Communications (Merrick, NJ), 1979.

(Editor, with wife, Lyn Dobrin, and Thomas Liotti) Convictions: Political Prisoners—Their Stories, Orbis (Maryknoll, NY), 1981.

(Editor) Being Good and Doing Right: Readings in Moral Development, University Press of America (Lanham, MD), 1993.

Spelling God with Two O's: Thoughts, Stories and Questions on Making a Moral Life, Columbia (Bethpage, NY), 1993.

Ethical People: And How they Get to Be That Way, University Press of America (Lanham, MD), 1993.

Malaika (novel), Jomo Kenyatta Foundation (Nairobi, Kenya), 1998.

Love Your Neighbor: Stories of Values and Virtues, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1999.

Teaching Right from Wrong: 40 Things You Can Do to Raise a Moral Child, Berkley Books (New York, NY), 2001.

Ethics for Everyone: How to Increase Your Moral Intelligence, J. Wiley & Sons (New York, NY), 2002.

POETRY

Sunbird: Poems of East Africa, Cross-Cultural Communications (Merrick, NJ), 1976.

Saying My Name Out Loud, Xanadu Press, 1978.

Gentle Spears, Cross-Cultural Communications (Merrick, NJ), 1979.

Out of Place, Backstreet Press, 1982.

Angels and Chambers, Cross-Cultural Communications (Merrick, NJ), 2001.

Contributor of poems to Bitterroot, Chelsea, Dark Waters, Street Cries, Compass, Poet, Ocarina, Xanadu, and East Africa Journal.

SIDELIGHTS: Arthur Dobrin is the author of numerous nonfiction books, poetry collections, and essays. Many of his nonfiction works reflect his leadership role with the Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island, a position from which he has recently stepped down to emeritus status. Together with his wife, Lyn, he has worked in Kisii, Kenya, as a Peace Corp volunteer; he has conducted annual people-to-people tours and photo safaris to Kenya; and he is the co-founder and coleader of Amnesty International Group #74 and the Long Island Interracial Alliance for a Common Future. He also teaches classes in religious ethics and the psychology of morality at Hofstra University.

Among Dobrin's nonfiction publications are three books focused on ethics: Love Your Neighbor: Stories of Values and Virtues (1999); Teaching Right from Wrong: 40 Thing You Can Do to Raise a Moral Child (2001); and Ethics for Everyone: How to Increase Your Moral Intelligence (2002). The first book in this trio is a collection of morality tales for children to help them overcome prejudice and learn cooperation, character, and kindness. Using animals to portray specific challenges in day-to-day living, Dobrin tells thirteen short stories, each ending in a question, which he urges the reader to try to answer. Megan Rutherford, writing a review for Time, found these tales to be "thought-provoking" and predicted that although the book is targeted toward children, parents and older students will also find something to enjoy in this book.

Teaching Right from Wrong helps guide parents in ways to teach their children to be kind, trustworthy, considerate, and fair. The concepts that Dobrin offers in this book come from current research in psychology. Dobrin demonstrates how ethical intelligence is teachable, how certain aspects of today's society shapes a child's character in either positive or negative ways, and how to avoid common pitfalls that parents often run into in educating their children.

Ethics for Everyone contains several examples of morally difficult situations that people commonly face. After defining a specific moral conflict, Dobrin considers both sides of the issue, encouraging his readers to extend their own thoughts to the broadest possible boundaries. Although Dobrin states that there are no easy answers to the dilemmas that he includes in this book, he believes that by discussing them, readers can gain better insight and make better decisions when faced with moral questions of their own. In the beginning of the book, Dobrin provides a set of questions for his readers that test their moral intelligence. After reading the book, readers are encouraged to answer the questions again and to make note of any changes in their thinking. A Publishers Weekly reviewer predicted that most readers will more than likely see a change in the results of the two separate sets of answers. They might find, it was suggested, that "their own ethical perspectives [have become] more nuanced and satisfying."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Family Circle, June, 1974.

Publishers Weekly, April 26, 1999, Volume 246, number 17, review of Love Your Neighbor: Stories of Values and Virtues, p. 82; February 18, 2002, Vol. 249, No. 7, review of Ethics for Everyone: How to Increase Your Moral Intelligence, p. 84.

School Library Journal, March 1999, Volume 45, number 3, Marianne Saccardi, review of Love Your Neighbor: Stores of Values and Virtues, p. 173.

Time, June 21, 1999, Volume 153, number 24, Megan Rutherford, review of Love Your Neighbor: Stories of Values and Virtues, p. 82K.*