July 17, 2025 By Maria
Now that summer is here, all three kids are home and unfortunately, they are not getting along as well as we would like. We have had many talks about kindness and treating others as you wished to be treated, and so on. Thankfully, we are starting to see a shift in behavior, even if there is a trying day now and then. One of our favorite ways to explain things to our kids is by relating their real-life experiences to stories. On a recent trip to the library my daughter and I found a couple good stories about kindness. We all enjoyed reading and discussing these books together at home.
My daughter found a picture book we have read several times over the years. It is called If you Plant a Seed written by Kadir Nelson. We all read it once again and discussed how this simple story of a mouse and bunny and a group of birds relates to sharing and planting seeds of kindness instead of selfishness. The book gives a great visualization of how small acts of kindness can grow into bigger and larger results. Planting a seed of kindness as we all know goes much further than anger and unkindness.
The other book about sharing and kindness and giving others a chance is Prunella by Beth Ferry. It was a book we hadn’t read yet. Illustrated by Claire Keane and published just last year, this book is about a little girl named Prunella who was born with a purple thumb and has a knack for growing unfriendly plants. She tries to share her plants with other kids, but the smells and prickliness deter them. Prunella slowly closes off and becomes pricklier like her plants until one day quite by accident she invites another child into her garden and new friendships start to bloom. On the side of learning about exploring your interests and passions, this book shows that it’s okay to be different and it demonstrates how kindness and sharing your passions are beautiful things.
Relating life to books is a beautiful and fun way my husband and I have always explained things to our kids starting back when my oldest was a toddler. Discussing these stories amongst others is helping us work on behaviors this summer. (We even read The Hundred Dresses before the school year finished to talk about the sneaky way bullying behavior can worm its way into everyday interactions). The picture books here are great for younger kids, but in our experience, we found they also communicated with older children, including our twelve-year-old. It will take work, but we will keep talking and reading our way to a kinder summer.
More Bookshelves Please 