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"Joe Wheeler is America's Keeper of the Story." James Dobson, Focus on the Family |
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"Keeper of the Story" In Dr. Wheeler's books there are generally two constants: If a given story fails to choke him up, most likely it will never make it into one of his collections. This is why he is often asked, "Is this a five kleenex story? A Three? Only a one?" The other constant is the illustration: most of them are woodcuts a century or more old. The stories themselves may be written by contemporary authors or by authors who wrote fifty or a hundred years ago, but each contains that magical ingredient: they touch the heart. Dr. Wheeler maintains that life is too short for one to waste time reading stories that neithermove nor enable, that fail to make the reader a kinder or more empathetic person that s/he was before reading it. The net result is that the reader of Dr. Wheeler's stories steps back in time to a quieter age, leaving today's frantic pace behind. Many of his stories are longer ones, giving the reader an opportunity to really get to know the characters and their motivations. Dr. Wheeler maintains that there are no great authors -- only great stories. Because of this, if he is deciding between two stories (one by a famous writer, the other by a total unknown), neither will have the edge: the power of the story itself being the deciding factor. Wheeler mines most heavily a period he calls "The Golden Age of Judeo-Christian Stories" (1880's - 1950's). Print was king then, and there was a veritable explosion of magazines targeted toward families and children. Most of even the most beloved authors of this age have long since been forgotten, and every day that passes more of their stories crumble out of existence. Wheeler has dedicated the rest of his life to bringing back as many as he possibly can from the edge of extinction. He is passionate about it for he notes that today tens of thousands of parents are instituting nightly story hours as a counterforce to the darker amoral stories that tend to be the norm with stories the media tells. "You won't like your children much when they grow up, if you let the media tell the stories," Wheeler postulates, "hence you need to share stories with values worth internalizing." Already over 500 such stories have been preserved within his 59 books. These stories are not sectarian but rather they embody values and qualities treasured the world over: kindness, generosity, integrity, constancy, temperance, respect for elders, etc.
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