#pb10for10 - Picture Books that promote "Taking Care of Others" for #TakingCareThurs

I just stumbled across #pb10for10 yesterday, so my post is a little late. Thank you to the founders of this August 10 for 10 picture book event. What a great idea! I love reading and sharing books with others. 

I decided to share 10 books from our Taking Care collection. Three years ago I founded a "Taking Care of Others" initiative at our school as a way for teachers to spread the message of the importance of taking care of others by reading books with themes of kindness, compassion, and friendship. We started with about 50 books and the collection has grown to over 160 books now. In year two, I added "Taking Care of Ourselves" as it is important to also take care of our own habits of mind as our actions impact others as well. I then added books with themes of persistence, growth mindset, believing in yourself, and more. Since I am limited to only 10 books, I decided to share 10 new books to our collection. All of these books have themes of taking care of others. I will be writing a detailed review of all of these books and a new book every Thursday, so come back and visit soon and read about other books in our collection! 

A brief highlight of the books is as follows:

• Dare, Tough, and Weird by Erin Frankel - a trilogy of books that examine bullying situations from three different perspectives - the bullied, the bystander, and the bully. 
• The Girl and the Bicycle by Mark Pett- a  wordless picture book exploring the relationship between the young and the old. A beautiful "story" of "taking care of others." 
• The Prince Who Was Just Himself by Silke Schnee - a story about a boy who was "different" (he had Down's Syndrome) who was able to reach out and "take care" of the terrible wicked knight, Scarface, in the story changing him forever. The beautiful prince was just himself. 
• Stick and Stone by Beth Ferry - a classic friendship story. 
• Red by Jan de Kinder - Tommy is relentlessly bullied for blushing and his "red" cheeks until one day Lisa decides to stand up for change. 
• Yeti and the Bird by Nadia Shireen - everyone will love this fun story about the biggest, hairiest, scariest Yeti anyone had every seen until Bird comes along. Did Yeti take care of Bird or did Bird take care of Yeti?
• Chocolate Milk, Por Favor? by Maria Dismondy - one of Maria's newest books. She is a champion for "taking care of others!"  Learn how chocolate milk and soccer turn out to help the students "take care of each other" and discover the real meaning of friendship and how to celebrate diversity. 
• If You Plant a Seed by Kadir Nelson - a beautifully illustrated and written book on the simple truth of kindness.... "if you plant a seed of kindness, in almost no time at all, the fruits of kindness will grow, and grow, and grow and they are very, very sweet." 

This year I'm hoping to spread this initiative through the #TakingCareThurs project. Will you join us by committing to reading a picture book every Thursday or the first Thursday of the month with themes of friendship, kindness, and compassion for taking care of others? Use the hashtag #TakingCareThurs to share your selection. Click here to read more.