These books that teach kids kindness combine the fun of reading with introducing concepts that can be difficult to explain to toddlers and preschoolers.

For your convenience, this post contains Amazon affiliate links from which I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.

One of my goals this year was to focus on kindness activities with the kids each week. I wanted to find more opportunities to involve the kids in doing nice things for others, as well as spending more time reading books that teach kids kindness.

With this in mind, I started #KindnessFridays for our family. Each Friday, we read some of our books that teach kids kindness and I choose an activity that will support our kindness mission.

I’ll be sharing more about our #KindnessFridays adventures in future blog posts. But for now, I wanted to share the books we’ve checked out so far. My preschoolers and toddler have really enjoyed each of these, and there have been several that they request to read again and again. I hope you and your children enjoy them as much as we did!

10 Books that Teach Kids Kindness

 

1. Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch

We loved how this story illustrated how being the recipient of kindness can affect a person, and in turn, how those affects can spread kindness to even more people. This is one that the kids asked for again and again. They loved to hear how a gift made Mr. Hatch so happy and what he did from his happiness. You can read a more detailed description of Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch on Amazon by clicking here.

2. Have You Filled a Bucket Today? A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids

The lesson taught in this book is one that we use daily to illustrate kindness in our family and to others. The idea of bucket filling and dipping is very visual and easy for preschoolers and toddlers to grasp. I highly recommend this book. Click here to read the full description of Have You Filled a Bucket Today? A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids on Amazon.

3. How Full Is Your Bucket? For Kids

This is similar to the Have You Filled a Bucket Today? book, in regards to discussing the concept of bucket filling. This was the first book I read to the kids about how filling a person’s bucket is related to kindness, however, I wish I would have used the other book. It gets the point across, but I don’t like the beginning of the story where the girls action of knocking down his block tower is not addressed. Other than that, it is a nice book that teaches kids kindness. Click here for the full description for How Full is Your Bucket? For Kids on Amazon.

4. Those Shoes

I loved this book, but I’m not sure my preschoolers and toddler completely understood what was going on in the story. Their main take-away from this book was that someone did something nice for someone else and it made them happy. And for now, that message is good enough for me! Click here for the full description of Those Shoes to see if it something your children might enjoy!

5. Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed

This is another book I loved, but it seemed to be a little lengthy for my toddler. I often found myself paraphrasing or eliminating sections in order to keep his attention throughout the book. But the idea of this book is great, and I’d actually like to do a related kindness activity where we try to see how many lives we can affect by our acts of kindness. Overall, this is a great book to illustrate how small acts of kindness can make a very big impact. Click here to read the full description of Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed.

6. Hug Time

This adorable little story by the creator of the MUTTS cartoons is so sweet. It is a quick read but it gets the point across about the ability of one person (or cat) can make a difference. Our favorite part at the end was yelling, “HUG TIME!” and then my kids tackled me with hugs. Click here to read the full description of Hug Time on Amazon.

7. What If Everybody Did That?

This book presents a variety of situations and of course asks the question: What if everybody did that? Not all of the situations were applicable to experiences for my children, but it did introduce a new phrase that I can ask when they are acting inappropriately. I also found that paraphrasing some of the book and describing what was happening in the pictures helped my children better understand why certain behaviors aren’t acceptable. If you are an Amazon Prime member , you can borrow this book for FREE from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library . Click here to read the full description of What if Everybody Did That?

8. The Kindness Quilt

This is a great book to partner with the actual activity of making a kindness quilt! That is definitely on our “to-do” list for one of our #KindnessFridays. I loved how it discussed specific acts of kindness, showing some that are simple, like reading to a sibling, to some that take a little more effort, like bringing soup to a neighbor. This is another one of the books that teach kindness Amazon Prime members can borrow for free from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library . Click here to read the full description of The Kindness Quilt.

9. How to Hug

While this isn’t exactly a book that teaches kindness, it is still a fun story about a kind thing to do: Give hugs! It made my kids laugh seeing the animals along with the silly ways “not to hug.” It was also another book that ended in me receiving a lot of hugs from my kids! Click here to read the full description of How to Hug.

10. The Way I Act

As I’m sure you can tell by the title, this describes a variety of actions from children. It goes above and beyond just kindness related behaviors, but I like how it talks about compassion and respect, which are big kindness concepts that I’m trying to teach the kids. It also gave me a way to introduce these concepts that I find difficult to actually explain to preschoolers and a toddler. Click here to read the full description of They Way I Act.

**********

Well, that completes the current list of books that teach kids kindness that we have read in our family. There are plenty of others that I hope to check out soon. Which books have you read with your children? Stop by my Facebook page to let me know!

And, if you’d like to keep up on our #KindnessFridays adventures, just search that hashtag or follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I’d love to have you join me in the fun, so feel free to use the #KindnessFridays hashtag so I can see what you’ve been up to!

As always, thanks for reading!