We all want out kids to be kind, and we’ve found these books have helped to reinforce the value we’ve placed there in our family. We hope you enjoy some of these, too!
The Little Blue Truck books are some of our most loved. They all share messages about being kind and helping others. Little Blue Truck– the original- features a sweet truck who decides to help a rude dump truck who gets stuck in the mud and needs Little Blue and his farm friends to get him un-stuck.
Similarly, in Little Blue Truck Leads the Way, Blue heads into the city with a farm fresh delivery and finds the busy city vehicles too focused on the hustle to make kind choices. He steps up to set the example, and ends up leading a parade through the city!
The Frog and Toad books were sweet when I was young, and I love sharing them with my own kids now. Frog and Toad are Friends shows the friends being good to one another by demonstrating kindness in good times and bad. My kids enjoy the stories and the illustrations, and my 6-year-old has taken to reading her sight words on the pages as well, since this is also a learn-to-read book. It’s so fun to be able to read together.
We are big fans of Philip C. Stead and Erin E. Stead, and this is the first book that made us fall in love with them. Amos McGee works at the City Zoo and takes extra time during his day to show kindness to his animal friends (helping the Rhino blow his nose, for example). One day he becomes sick and can’t go to work, so his friends visit him at home to help him recover. We love talking about how we can help others when they need it, and A Sick Day for Amos McGee illustrates it well!
Last Stop on Market Street is a popular book about CJ who goes with his grandma to volunteer at a soup kitchen after church on Sundays. On the way, they meet many people who are different from them on the bus. CJ’s grandma helps him see the people with kindness, and the story ends with CJ feeling glad for their experience. We absolutely love the images by Christian Robinson and Matt De La Peña’s words keep us returning to this title over and over again.
Hug Machine is a light-hearted tale of a kid who makes the world better by hugging everything- human, animal, inanimate- he sees! While we work hard to teach our kids to ask before hugging their friends, we reference the book as a way to acknowledge that sometimes we need a hug to celebrate, to feel better, or to show that we appreciate someone.
Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun is so sweet. In it Lucy, the main character, has been told by her Papa Gino that she should always remember that we all have feelings that can be hurt. It’s hard for her to remember that when she’s being teased by a kid at her school. One day that kid gets scared and asks for help, and it’s Lucy who chooses kindness and helps him. When she gets home to Papa Gino, he’s very proud of her, and Lucy’s confidence is restored. She decides that she’ll request her favorite sandwich (spaghetti in a hot dog bun) for lunch the next day even if she gets teased for it.
I was thrilled that RJ Palacio turned her popular YA novel into a picture book. We’re all Wonders tells the story of Auggie, who looks different than other kids, and how the judgement that he faces by others makes him feel disconnected and misunderstood. He imagines a world in which people see differently, focusing not on his differences but how the differences in each person makes them great. I couldn’t love the message or illustrations more.
Leave a comment or a suggestion for a future book for us to read and include!