Picture Books About Kindness

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Any time of year is the perfect time to work in picture books about kindness! Children love to read books that they can relate to and teachers love when that book teaches them an underlying lesson about making good choices.

I’ve complied here a list of my favorite books that focus on a theme of kindness. These books for elementary students are perfect discussion starters for social emotional learning. There is a free graphic organizer download below that can work with ANY of these books!

picture books about kindness

Picture Books About Kindness

When choosing a book to teach a social emotional skill there is usually two main options. There are books that are obviously written about the trait and explaining it. Then there are books that SHOW the skill through a story. Depending on your lesson and age group they can all lead to really meaningful lessons!

Lesson Picture Books where the focus SEL skill is obvious

Try A Little Kindness

What Does It Mean To Be Kind?

Kindness to Others

The Jelly Donut Difference

Chocolate Milk Por Favor

Peanut Butter & Cupcake

The Big Umbrella

Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun

I share a free lesson and reading activities for this book on my blog post here!

Monty The Manatee

The Invisible Boy

The Rainbow Fish

Kindness to The World

What If Everybody Did That?

We Are All Connected

Kindness to Self

I Am Enough

I Like Myself!

Ideas for a Kindness Read Aloud Lesson

  • use these books in an interactive read aloud to model thinking about the acts of kindness as you are reading
  • teach making connections to help students think about when they have seen these types of kindness
  • use graphic organizers to discuss and recognize the kindness aspects in the books

Get access to the graphic organizers here for free!

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