Book Pitch: Kind by Alison Green
By Daniel Mahoney
What This Book Has to Offer
Alison Green’s Kind is a fun-filled picture book that highlights the importance of respecting one another through kindness. The book features diversity through its characters, who encompass a wide range of backgrounds. Further, many of the book’s contributors also come from diverse backgrounds, which adds to the inclusive factor of the book’s creation. This book has over 38 creators and each contributor brings a unique element of diversity to the book. And, as Katherine W. Phillips puts it, "Diversity enhances creativity" (44).
The Book's Instilled Values
Through both text and illustrations, Green’s Kind helps children to recognize and reciprocate kindness. The book gives clear and simple examples of how to be kind. Affection, compassion and making everyone feel included are important themes that are encouraged in this book. These are some traits in the book that children can bring with them in their everyday lives. Showing kindness encourages diversity because stigmatization and discrimination cannot exist in the same space as kindness and love. Teaching the instilled lessons in Green’s Kind will lead to a more inclusive future that is filled with love and diversity.
Sources:
"Kind." Scholastic, https://shop.scholastic.com/teachers-ecommerce/teacher/books/kind-9781338627053.html. Accessed 2 April 2022.
Phillips, Katherine W., et al. “HOW DIVERSITY WORKS.” Scientific American, vol. 311, no. 4, 2014, pp. 42–47, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26040399. Accessed 15 Apr. 2022.