30 Books of Kindness Day 23:10 Things I Can Do To Help My World

One thing that I am learning from creating this list of 30 books that promote, foster, or teach kindness is that it is indeed just a list. I say this because several books that other individuals have included in their lists of "books about kindness" have been thoroughly and utterly rejected by my daughter. So each day that I pick one book to blog about, I am actually reading several with my oldest and seeing how she responds and reacts to them. She is quite honest.

Brutally honest.

Monday was SUPPOSED to be day 23, and I thought it would be great to read some poems about kindness in honor of National Poetry Month. For at least a half-hour, I read what I thought were thought provoking poems from a recently published book that has received MUCH acclaim. All the experts are talking about how great this book is for introducing kids to poetry. Except the experts do not have the same tastes as my daughter, and this book apparently did NOT speak to her.

She interrupted me and said, "You know, actually Mom, I really don't like these poems. I mean I don't like ANY of these poems."

So I went to find something else to read. We finally ended up reading 10 Things I Can Do to Help My World by Melanie Walsh. Finally!  A winner!

The book is beautifully illustrated with interactive pages. Each page lists one thing you can do to help the world, and then has a flap that you can lift and see a short, one sentence explanation as to why that thing really does help the world.

The message of being kind to the Earth is clearly stated with great ideas that kids can do themselves. Plus, it is printed on paper made from recycled materials. They actually practice what they preach. 



However, the number one reason this books speaks to my daughter is because it has cutouts. Yes, the value of the page was ranked by the number of cutouts. Which, is why we spent a good 5 minutes flipping back and forth on the page about recycling because there were five cutouts. Because of these cutouts, she said the book was awesome. The cutouts prompted her to spend more time looking at the pages and therefore more time reading and re-reading the message.

The lesson for me, though, is that what really matters is finding books that speak to my girls. I am gathering a list of just as many books about "kindness" that do not resonate as I am for those that do. And this amazing book my Melanie Walsh speaks loud and clear to my girls that they can change the world for the better with 10 simple steps.