Share Book Love
Encourage literacy at home and beyond.
A good book is a powerful tool to build compassion. Emerging research demonstrates it’s not that empathetic people are drawn to reading. Reading fiction actually trains the mind to think with more compassion.
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”
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Read with Empathy
As a new school year begins, picture books can help children build empathy, welcome new friends, and create caring classroom communities. These stories encourage readers to notice others, celebrate differences, and discover how even small acts of kindness can make a big impact.
Whether gun violence has happened near home, or you’ve seen it in the news, the kids in your life have likely seen or heard about it, too. Children will feel a mix of confusion, sadness, and fear after these events, and most do not have the tools to process those emotions. When reading these books together, you can use them as a starting point for conversations about the hard emotions they’re feeling, and where there’s room for safety and hope.
When what’s on the news, either on TV, our computers, or our phones, feels overwhelming or scary, children are often picking up on more then we realize, even when they’re not directly taking in the information. The books on this list are gateways for helping kids understand what’s happening in the world, to help them ask their questions and process big emotions.
Family separation and deportation are difficult realities that many children encounter, whether in their own lives, their classrooms, or their communities. The books on this list offer gentle, age-appropriate ways to help kids understand these experiences and process big feelings.
Shape hearts and inspire action with these read-aloud picks for elementary kids. Perfect for sparking meaningful conversations, whether you're starting a book club at home, reading together as a class, or simply looking to connect over a great story.
Open an earnest conversation about loss. When children have questions about death and grief, let's do our best to answer them honestly and compassionately. Here are a few beautiful books to help your family begin a conversation about death, grief, and the cycles of life.
Serious or sudden illness can be a scary issue to deal with at any age. Yet caring for and reaching out to those who are sick is an essential lesson in compassion, even for very young children. Whether you are caring for a loved one or volunteering to provide comfort, this collection of picture books will help your whole family get started.
Browse Articles from DGT’s Big-Hearted Blog!
As adults, we have a better sense of what is within our locus of control and how we can approach solving problems from our mature perspective, whereas young children see a lot of problems as big and insurmountable even if they are not. The good news is that we can cultivate the growth of our child’s sense of helpfulness over time in ways that match their developmental stage, while teaching about both agency AND the interconnectedness of humanity.
The last few years have pushed us to our limits as we watch our world become more and more polarized over conversations around gun laws, mental health, the pandemic, race, and a war that rages in Eastern Europe. It seems almost impossible to take a breath. I struggle with how much to share with my children, but I ultimately know that they need to hear the truth – in age appropriate ways – even when it breaks my heart to share it with them.
Here are my suggestions on having these challenging conversations along with some resources that have helped me – and might help you as well.
Making time to read and wonder together offers a comforting oasis in an often chaotic world, for both children and parents. To make getting started easier for your family, we at Doing Good Together have added several bookish acts of service to our growing Pick-a-Project collection.
Let’s make time to explore our nation’s storied history with our children. By cultivating a thorough, nuanced, and inclusive understanding of our shared history, we will be able to see each other with greater compassion as we work to build a more just society. DGT offers tools to get you started.
Poetry is uniquely suited to bring us together and ease our anxiety in troubled times. Let’s put our words to work for the comfort of others.
At DGT we know that books give us the gift of perspective, a sense that we are not alone on this journey to raise empowered, engaged kids. The books we’ve gathered here offer
inspiration to try something new when the status quo isn’t working,
encouragement and hope at the end of a hard day, and
practical, doable ideas to help you raise kind, community-minded kids.
There is a certain amount of “Who am I?” and “Why are we here?” work that needs to happen during our early years. At Doing Good Together, we have found that a great deal of the inner work happens when kids have the opportunity to ask big questions with adults in their lives. Our latest post gives you the scientific benefits of philosophical inquiry and offers practical tools to get you started.
Since it came out in 2006, McCloud's book Have You Filled a Bucket Today: A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids has become essential reading in schools and homes across the country. I recently had the privilege of chatting with Carol McCloud and learning more about her bucket-filling adventures.
Together, if we share our big-hearted stories, we can transform the tone of public conversation. Ultimately, we can change the world!
The right book can do more than transport and entertain its readers. Powerful stories spark empathy for people we've never met. They inspire us to take action, to right injustices, or even simply to reach out to those around us. So how do you inspire your older child to put down the latest goofy series or dystopian saga and pick up a book full of big ideas?
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July brings warmth, sunshine and the full summer experience. The hallmark of July is the warmth of the bright sun, the growth of flowers, and the energy all around us. Just like sunshine, kindness has the power to spread goodness all around and improve health in the process. Whether it is the simple sharing of a smile, lending a neighbor a helping hand, giving back to your community or creating a ripple effect of positivity, kindness provides an opportunity to spread sunshine in people’s lives. How are you and your family spreading sunshine this summer?
As the summer starts, I have been thinking a great deal about how few summers we as parents have with our children. We only have one summer when they are infants, a few when they are toddlers, eight when they are children. The times I remember most from my childhood are the family activities done together in the times away from the routine of every day. When kindness is infused into those family activities, it makes them even more meaningful. Every summer is another opportunity to embrace this special, less-structured time we have with our kids, and a chance to enjoy the simple joys that a purpose-filled summer has to offer.
In May, many families are preparing for summer travel, mapping out routes, planning fun excursions and dreaming about time together as a family. What if, in addition to making plans for travel, we made plans for kindness as well? There is space for kindness to strangers and one another, generosity towards others, patience at stressful moments, and connection through new experiences. This summer, let’s make kindness part of the plan.