When Arthur Dobrin, minister of the Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island, ran out of stories and fables to read to the children in Sunday school, he decided to pen his own. Using a variety of animals commonly loved by children, Dobrin created a collection of stories intended to be entertaining and thought-provoking for children.

"If you could also read something that is entertaining and instructive without being obvious so much the better and that's what I was doing with the stories," said Dobrin.

Now what was once a collection of stories conceived for Dobrin's Sunday school students, has recently been compiled into a book entitled Love Your Neighbor - Stories of Values and Virtues.

The book is a compilation of 13 short stories, some of which are renditions of old tales and others are Dobrin originals. They feature squirrels, bunnies, bees, zebras and other animals, illustrated by Jacqueline Rogers.

"By having the characters as animals it avoids the whole issue of what race or ethnicity are the characters. There aren't any so it doesn't matter what background the child comes from they can identify with the animal," said Dobrin.

Each story contains a moral, but unlike typical fables, Dobrin said, the morals can not necessarily be summarized in one sentence. Instead, each story ends with a question and the children are encouraged to discover lessons in the story on their own. It is a story-telling approach Dobrin hopes will help open up dialogue between young readers and their parents.

A professor of humanities at Hofstra University and a Westbury resident, Dobrin has a master's degree in human relations from New York University and a doctorate in social welfare from Adelphi University's School of Social Work. "Love Your Neighbor - Stories of Values and Virtues" is Dobrin's 16th book, but his first children's book.

"I'm always writing, to me it's no more work than playing ball," said Dobrin.

But writing and seeing through the publication of a children's book was a particularly thrilling endeavor for Dobrin.

"It was so exciting to see what is in your mind coming alive and realizing that it is now going to be a part of other people's imaginations," he said adding that prior to the production of the book, his characters existed only in his imagination.

Dobrin, a member of the ethics committee of Winthrop-University Hospital and a teacher of religious ethics and moral development at Hofstra, understands the importance of literature in a child's development.

Said Dobrin, "I think that reading to children is very important. It is one of the first steps in teaching children empathy and it's empathy that is really the beginning of moral development. Reading and imaginative literature help children to identify with someone outside of themselves."