Kind: A Book About Kindness

Featuring the donated work of 38 international illustrators, this volume benefits the refugee organization Three Peas. It opens by looking at everyday, child-scaled acts of inclusion, assistance, and compassion in largely anthropomorphic images that range in style and tone. Helen Stephens shows a penguin and a big, burly bear toting a bag together; Thomas Muller draws a canine band happily welcoming a saxophone player. Just past the midway point, the book shifts to a broader and bigger perspective, as Britta Teckentrup portrays a vast, translucent ocean filled with boats of people and animals seeking a new home. “Sometimes people have lived through very hard times,” writes author and publisher Green. “They’ve had to leave their homes and their countries because of danger.” But as the collaborators illustrate, kindness means not only goodwill but the all-important promise of protection and safety—and with that sense of security comes new friendships and perspectives that open up the world for everyone involved. Heartwarming but never treacly or preachy, this talent showcase serves the cause of kindness well. Ages 3–5. [em](Oct.) [/em]