Share Some Kindness, Bring Some Light-teaches softly and fun for 4-9

I’m a firm believer that the answers to the problems that you’re currently having are usually right in front of you. In the case of our nine-year-old, he’s reading Share Some Kindness, Bring Some Light. He’s on the tail end of the reading level for this book. The book’s key audience is pre-K through third grade. However, this is one that he can easily read for the most part. For him, it’s more about the message and the soft lesson that the book is illustrating.

Coco and Bear are two friends in the forest. Coco is an outgoing, vivacious young girl in a purple tutu, red boots, and a pink hat, while Bear is a massive, shy bear who simply wears a red scarf.  Despite all of their differences, their friendship knows no bounds, yet some of the other critters in the forest don’t see Bear in the same manner. Bear is too big, say some of the animals. They think he’s scary and would just as soon as eat them as he would go for a walk in the woods.

Coco goes back to an old saying that her grandmother says, ‘share some kindness, bring some light’. The two friends take the message quite literally when they go back to Bear’s cave. Bear starts to make cookies, because giving people cookies is kind and who doesn’t like cookies? Coco puts some lights in a jar so that the animals can see more now that it’s winter and getting dark earlier.

When the two set out to deliver their offerings they realize the animals don’t want them. They either sleep at night and don’t need any light, or are too scared of Bear to accept them. All of that changes when Bear’s size gives them a chance to do something needed and timely on the way back home. It turns out that it’s the character of the creature, in this case, Bear, that convinced the animals that he has the traits that make for a great friend.

The art in Share Some Kindness, Bring Some Light is beautiful and heartfelt. You can see the love that author/illustrator Apryl Stott put into each detail or subtle personality trait. Some of the pages are corner to corner color while others are white with the main action framed by twigs, ice, or grass. This helps frame a calm, contained story that will be great for kids to read as a good-night book.

Don’t tell kids reading the book-but it also teaches a lesson. Our nine-year-old is very much like Bear. He wants to make friends but sometimes does it by trying to give things away. At first, he was paying them to do things-we stopped that experiment quickly. Now he’s trying to take candy everywhere he goes as a way to ‘be nice’ to other kids. If Bear had access to candy that’s a tactic that he’d probably try too.

We’ve told him, much like Bear had to learn, that you make friends by being nice and being friendly. It doesn’t matter if you give them candy, cookies, or a lamp. They want someone nice, friendly, and those people that are kind in a selfless sense, because what comes around goes around. For now, our son is keeping his candy at home and we’re reading this book a couple of times a week to see if Bear’s lesson will hit home.

Share Some Kindness, Bring Some Light is written and illustrated by Apryl Stott and available on Simon & Schuster.

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