There are so many great books about emotions, kindness, compassion, justice, courage and other social emotional skills. We love the growing diversity of books on these topics. But listen up! You don’t need to update your entire children’s home library to have important social emotional conversations with kids about the books they are reading. Any book can facilitate these conversations. Consider these prompts.

How you think this character might be feeling? How do you know?

How is the character using their body to show their emotions?

Have you ever felt that way? What did you do?

Has anyone in this story shown compassion or kindness towards someone else? Who? What did they do?

Have you ever seen someone have an experience like that? How do you think they felt?

What does that character really want? How are they working for it?

What is a challenge that character had to overcome? How did they do that?

Do you see any examples of hope or hopelessness in this story? What are they?

Did this story show someone working hard to achieve something they want? What are some steps they had to take?

Did this story show a character having a big feeling? How did they manage it?

What do you think it would feel like to be that character?

If this character was your friend, what would you say to them?

Would you change anything about this story? Why or why not?