Lexile Level: 530L

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein is a powerful children's book that can be enjoyed by people of all ages. The book tells the story of a tree that gives everything it can to a boy and finds joy through the act of giving. This would be a wonderful book to read aloud in an elementary classroom because of its message about giving. Students could easily relate the story to their lives and would be able to use their connection to the text to inform their writing responses. This would be a great book to use during a literature circle exercise in which each student could have a role that involved analyzing the book in some way and having discussions about the text. 

Lexile Level: 540L

Zen Shorts by Jon J Muth tells the story of a panda named Stillwater and three siblings named Michael, Karl and Addy. Stillwater appears in the children's backyard one day and begins to tell them stories based on Buddhist parables. This book would be great to read aloud as it includes beautiful messages about giving, kindness, and forgiveness. Students could create writing responses after this book has been read aloud by their teacher as an extension activity that would allow them to explore the messages individually and form their own thoughts and reflections. Teachers could also include this book in their classroom library in order to create a more culturally diverse selection of books for their students to explore. 

Lexile Level: AD150L

This picture book by Kadir Nelson has a great message about kindness and would be wonderful to introduce to students at the beginning of the school year. The book describes how we can plant seeds of selfishness or kindness which will grow into either fruits of trouble or fruits of kindness. This could help young students understand the importance of their actions. The book features colorful and engaging illustrations. This makes it perfect for a picture walk activity in which students can read the pictures before the teacher reads the text aloud. This book would also be perfect for kindergarten students to explore independently to develop print awareness. Teachers could lead discussions about how individuals can plant seeds of kindness and students could respond in writing about how they would plant kind seeds.  

Lexile Level: AD710L

This book by Carol McCloud would be amazing to read aloud to elementary students of all ages because of its wonderful message about kindness. The book describes how everyone has an invisible bucket and our actions and words can either fill or dip each others' buckets. This book would be perfect to teach younger elementary students about the concept of empathy. Students could easily connect to the text and create writing responses reflecting on how they can fill someone's bucket. Teachers could make each student a literal 'bucket' and students could write positive notes to their classmates to fill their buckets. This would be great to introduce students to at the beginning of the year in order to create a theme out of its message that would encourage a positive classroom environment. This book is inspirational to people of all ages and can even help teachers to remember to be intentional in their actions and words.