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

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1. Sharing Silver — best for a child who shares only when watched

Most sharing stories end with the selfish character being sorry. That is a fine ending and a weak lesson, because sorry wears off by Tuesday. Sharing Silver is built the other way round. Silver the Super Pup meets Bandit, a dog who takes from everyone and gives nothing back, and instead of scolding him, walks him through Friendship Forest to watch the thing work: Olivia's music, Benny's waterwheel, a whole forest that looks after whoever looks after it.

That matters for the child this list is really for, the one who shares beautifully while an adult is in the doorway and stops the second the doorway is empty. Bandit is never shamed into changing. He watches, works it out, and decides. Children who have been told a hundred times to share respond very differently to a character who arrives at it himself, and the giving line is short enough that a four-year-old will quote it back at you in the car a week later. Written for ages three to seven, which is exactly the window where sharing stops being a rule from a grown-up and becomes something a child chooses.

“You get what you give — and the more you give, the more you get.”

Sharing Silver is a superhero training story about sharing, kindness and giving, written for ages 3 to 7. The book on this list that gives a child a reason to share rather than an instruction.

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 a child to share covers the week after you close it.

2. The Rainbow Fish — by Marcus Pfister

The most beautiful fish in the ocean has scales everyone admires and no friends at all, until he starts giving the scales away one by one. It is the sharing book almost every household ends up owning, and the foil scales genuinely hold a three-year-old's attention. Worth knowing before you buy: a fair number of parents dislike the moral, because the fish has to give away pieces of himself to be liked. We read it and then ask whether the other fish were being very kind, which turns the wobbly bit into the best conversation in the book. View The Rainbow Fish on Amazon →

3. Should I Share My Ice Cream? — by Mo Willems

Gerald the elephant has an ice cream. Piggie is not there. Should he share it? He thinks about it, and thinks about it, and while he thinks the ice cream melts. This is the funniest book here by a distance and the one our own children asked for again, and it captures something no earnest story manages: the agonising is the hard part, not the giving. Best for four and up, or any child who has started reading a few words themselves, since the Elephant and Piggie format is speech bubbles and almost no narration. View Should I Share My Ice Cream? on Amazon →

4. It's Mine! — by Leo Lionni

Three frogs share an island and squabble endlessly over every inch of it, until a flood leaves them clinging to the same rock and they discover they would rather have company than a private pond. Lionni's watercolours are lovely and the text is short. This is the one for siblings, or for two children who get on fine until an object is involved, because it is honestly about arguing rather than about a single greedy character. If the fighting at your house is constant, pair it with our sibling rivalry guide. View It's Mine! on Amazon →

5. Llama Llama Time to Share — by Anna Dewdney

Nelly Gnu comes to play, Llama Llama does not want anyone touching Fuzzy Llama, and the tug of war ends with the toy torn. The repair afterwards is the good part. Dewdney's rhythm is the reason this one works on the youngest end of the range, roughly two to five, where longer stories lose them. It is really a turn-taking book rather than a sharing book, which is exactly why it lands earlier than the rest of this list, and it pairs well with turn-taking games in the days after. View Llama Llama Time to Share on Amazon →

6. Sharing a Shell — by Julia Donaldson

A small hermit crab wants his new shell entirely to himself and is thoroughly put out when a blob of purple anemone and a bristleworm move in. Then he grows, needs a bigger shell, and finds out what his lodgers were actually contributing. Donaldson's rhyme carries it and Lydia Monks' glittery artwork makes it a request-again book. The reason it earns a place here is that it argues for sharing on practical grounds rather than moral ones, which suits a stubborn child who is unmoved by being told to be nice. View Sharing a Shell on Amazon →

7. Do Unto Otters — by Laurie Keller

Mr Rabbit's new neighbours are otters and he has no idea how to get along with them, so Mr Owl offers him the golden rule. What follows is a very silly run through what that actually means in practice, sharing included, alongside taking turns, apologising and not being rude. It is broader than a pure sharing book and full of wordplay, so it suits five and up more than three. Good value if you want one book covering the whole set of playground manners rather than a single skill. View Do Unto Otters on Amazon →

8. The Giving Tree — by Shel Silverstein

A tree gives a boy her apples, then her branches, then her trunk, and finally there is nothing left but a stump for him to sit on. It has been argued over since 1964 and people still cannot agree whether it is about generous love or about being taken for granted. We keep it on the list precisely for that reason: with a child of six or seven it produces a genuinely interesting conversation about whether giving everything is a good idea, which is a more grown-up question than the rest of this list asks. Not the one to start with, and not one to read to a three-year-old expecting a tidy lesson. View The Giving Tree on Amazon →

How to choose one, and how to read it

Match the book to the argument you keep having. A child who shares only under supervision needs Sharing Silver. A child who cannot bear to hand anything over needs The Rainbow Fish or Sharing a Shell. Two children fighting over the same object need It's Mine!. A two-year-old who cannot wait needs Llama Llama Time to Share. Buying the one that matches this week beats buying four that do not.

It also helps to expect less than you probably do. Developmental research suggests the cheaper kinds of helping show up before a child is two, while giving up something they actually want arrives later and stays patchy right through the preschool years. So a three-year-old refusing to share is usually on schedule rather than being difficult.

The other thing worth knowing is what happens when you force it. In a 2013 study in Psychological Science, Nadia Chernyak and Tamar Kushnir found preschoolers who freely chose to give up something they valued shared more later on than children who were made to, apparently because choosing it changed how they saw themselves. Reading a story is one of the few ways to make sharing the child's idea rather than yours. So read it more than once, and then say it out loud when it happens for real: "You gave her the last one. That was yours and you gave it away." Most of us remember the book and forget the noticing.

If you want more, see our guide to raising a kind, sharing friend, the best picture books about sharing if you are choosing on illustrations for a read-aloud, and what to do when your child won't share toys for the arguments happening this week.