The novelist Walker Percy once observed, "Some people get all As but flunk life." Succeeding in life takes character. In Character Matters, award-winning psychologist-educator Thomas Lickona offers more than 100 practical strategies that parents and schools have used to help kids build strong personal character as the foundation for a purposeful, productive, and fulfilling life.

Lickona shows how irresponsible and destructive behavior can invariably be traced to the absence of good character and its 10 essential qualities: wisdom, justice, fortitude, self-control, love, a positive attitude, hard work, integrity, gratitude, and humility. He lays out a blueprint for building these core virtues through a partnership shared by families, schools, and communities.