We love this children’s book that teaches kids about kindness and perspective taking. The premise of the book is that everyone has an invisible bucket. When our bucket is full, we feel happy and proud of ourselves. And when our bucket is empty, we feel lonely and sad. 

 

We need other people to help fill our bucket, and other people need us to help fill their buckets. The way we treat other people fills or empties their bucket. In this story, the main character Felix gets his day off to a bad start. He can feel his bucket getting emptier and emptier as more things go wrong during the day. But then his day begins to turn around and he can feel the drops filling up his bucket. He soon realizes that when he treats other people with kindness, he is filling their bucket for them.

 

This is a great book to read with kids because it gives a simple metaphor that you can carry on well past the reading of the book. You can ask kids, “What can we do to fill someone’s bucket today?” or “Do you think that action fills or empties someone’s bucket” or “How full is your bucket this morning?”