Children's Story Books About Kindness (Ages 3–7)

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1. Sharing Silver — best for teaching kindness a child can actually copy

The trouble with most kindness books is that they describe the feeling and skip the instructions. A child closes the book knowing kindness is good and still has no idea what to do at nine o'clock on Monday. Sharing Silver goes the other way. Silver the Super Pup meets Bandit, a naughty dog who takes from everyone and gives nothing back, and rather than telling him off, Silver walks him through Friendship Forest to see the thing working: Olivia's music, Benny's waterwheel, a whole forest that looks after the ones who look after it.

What makes it the strongest kindness book on this list for this age is that Bandit is not shamed into changing. He watches, he works it out, and he chooses it. Children who have been told to be kind a hundred times respond very differently to a character who reaches the conclusion himself, and the mirror line is short enough that a four-year-old will repeat it back to you unprompted a week later. It is written for exactly this window, ages three to seven, when kindness stops being a rule from a grown-up and starts being something a child does on purpose.

“The world is like a mirror. It reflects back what you give.”

Sharing Silver is a superhero training story about kindness, sharing and giving, written for ages 3 to 7. The book on this list that turns kindness into something a child can practise.

View Sharing Silver on Amazon

You can read a sample of Sharing Silver first to see whether the voice suits your child, and our guide to teaching kids kindness covers what to do in the days after you close it.

2. Have You Filled a Bucket Today? — by Carol McCloud

Everyone carries an invisible bucket. Kind words fill it, unkind words empty it, and emptying someone else's never fills your own. As a piece of writing it is closer to an explainer than a story, so do not expect plot, but the metaphor is the most useful one we have found for the under-fives because it gives a whole household a shorthand. "That emptied her bucket" lands with a three-year-old in a way that a paragraph about feelings does not. Many infant classrooms already use it, so your child may bring the language home before you buy it. View Have You Filled a Bucket Today? on Amazon →

3. Be Kind — by Pat Zietlow Miller

Tanisha spills grape juice on her dress, the class laughs, and the girl telling the story wants to help but cannot think how. That is the whole book, and it is why it works. It sits inside the awkward gap every child knows, wanting to do the right thing and not knowing what the right thing is, then walks through the small options: say her name, sit with her, notice her. Jen Hill's illustrations keep it gentle. Best of the bunch for a hesitant or shy child who is kind by nature but frozen in the moment. View Be Kind on Amazon →

4. Each Kindness — by Jacqueline Woodson

Fair warning before you open this with a small child: there is no happy repair at the end. Chloe turns away the new girl, Maya, every single time she tries to join in, and then Maya moves away and the chance is simply gone. Woodson refuses to let anyone off, and the quiet ache of it is the point. It is the most demanding book here and probably the one that does the most work, but save it for about five and up, and read it on an evening when there is time to sit and talk afterwards rather than rushing on to bed. View Each Kindness on Amazon →

5. Last Stop on Market Street — by Matt de la Peña

CJ grumbles his way onto a bus after church, wanting to know why they do not have a car like his friends, and his grandmother answers every complaint by pointing at something worth seeing instead. Where they are going only becomes clear at the end. This is the one for a child who is starting to notice what other families have, and it widens kindness beyond the playground into how you treat a whole neighbourhood. Christian Robinson's artwork is glorious, and it is unusual in being a picture book that won the Newbery Medal. View Last Stop on Market Street on Amazon →

6. The Recess Queen — by Alexis O'Neill

Mean Jean runs the playground and nobody swings, kicks or bounces until she says so. Then tiny Katie Sue turns up, fails to be frightened, and asks her to jump rope. The rhythm is bouncy enough to chant, which is what makes it stick, and it quietly teaches the hardest lesson on this list: being kind to the child everyone else has written off. Useful if there is a difficult character at your child's school, and better than a lecture about standing up to unkindness. View The Recess Queen on Amazon →

How to choose one, and how to read it

Pick for the situation in front of you rather than the best reviews. A child who takes without noticing needs Sharing Silver. A child who wants to help and freezes needs Be Kind. A child who has left somebody out needs Each Kindness. A child dealing with a playground boss needs The Recess Queen. Buying one that matches the week you are having beats buying four that do not.

Then read it more than once. The first reading is a story. By the third, children start predicting what the character ought to do next, and that is the point where the lesson quietly becomes theirs rather than yours. Research on prosocial development suggests children pick up kind behaviour largely by seeing it modelled and then having it recognised in themselves, which makes the free part the important part: say it out loud when it happens for real. "You noticed she had nobody to sit with, and you moved over. That was kind." Most of us remember to read the book and forget to do the noticing.

If you want more, see our guide to raising a kind, sharing friend, the best books about sharing and kindness if the sticking point is specifically sharing rather than kindness in general, and kindness activities for kids for turning any of these into something to do this weekend.