As parents we teach our children about the importance of kindness from infancy.
But there’s always room for kids to be reminded about the benefits of kindness and see the many varied ways that it can be practised. Which is where books about kindness for kid can be a fantastic tool, highlighting the positive benefits of kindness and helping us truly understand the impact of unkindness. Books about kindness for kids are not only modelling kind behaviours but helping them practise important empathy skills too.
Books are an enormously powerful tool for helping our children develop a stronger sense of empathy. It’s one of the many vital benefits of a regular reading routine. Children who regularly read for pleasure have been proven to be more empathetic, inclusive and socially aware.
Each year as part of their Empathy Day celebrations, EmpathyLab pull together 60 recommended children’s books in their Read for Empathy collection. There are some brilliant, inspiring and important books on this year’s Read for Empathy list and we highly recommend exploring the collection in full. If you’re not quite sure where to start, here is our pick of 10 of the best titles for family reading.
It is widely recognised that reading fiction is an enormously powerful tool in increasing levels of empathy in our children. But how does it work? And is it really better than non-fiction? We explore this an more and share some amazing research findings.
It’s shocking to watch events unfolding in Ukraine and, understandably, many children have a lot of questions and concerns about what is happening. We’re huge advocates of books for helping children to explore their feelings, practise empathy and develop their understanding of the world around them. With that in mind, we’ve put together this list of 13 books that you might find a useful starting point for talking with children about the war in Ukraine and its impact:
Author Alastair Chisholm's bookOrion Lostwas a huge hit with our Cockatoo subscribers last year. Alastair’s brand new book,Adam-2, is published this week and we couldn’t be more excited about it! Here Alastair tells us all about what inspired the book and the wonderful cast of characters, who we know you’re going to love.
The book we sent our Parakeet subscribers this month tells the beautiful and ultimately uplifting story of Olive, whose family is in the midst of a terrible grief. We're delighted to be able to share an exclusive extract from The Elephant as well as our recommended books for kids about grief and mental health.