Children's Book on Kindness "Those Shoes"

Those Shoes is written by Maribeth Boelts and illustrated by Noah Z. Jones.  The story is a simple one where a boy sees the desire and need of another and fills that need, sacrificing his own want.  The boys were RIVETED to this book.  In fact, they "stole" it from our pile and were reading it before I even noticed.

As we read the book we talked about:

• What are things that we want that others want, too?
• Why is it important to take care of our needs before our wants?
• What are popular things to have with the kids at school?
• How often do we get to buy toys or clothes we want, rather than ones we need?
• What does it feel like when someone makes fun of you?
• What can you do if you see it happening to someone else?
• How did Jeremy decide that helping his friend was better than keeping the shoes?

 

The most important question we asked ourselves:

When is a time that we have helped someone else even though we REALLY didn't want to?

• What was that like?
• How did we feel when it was over?
• How did the other person feel?

 

The conversation ended up being about feeling empowered to make the decision to help or not help and being able to step back and see how helping or not helping will affect the situation (very much like conversations we have with If Everybody Did).  A side note:  It was also interesting to hear my 6 year old talk about classmates that were similar in behavior to others in the book and how he feels when he sees their behavior.)

 

To find more books that we like to use: