These children's books about values are endorsed and curated by Love Bonds as they subtly teach about values in a simple yet profound way.
1) The Heart and the Bottle Book by Oliver Jeffers + Conversation Guides
2) I am Love by Susan Verde + Conversation Guides
The Heart and the Bottle book by Oliver Jeffers + Conversation Guides
How does it benefit my child?
This is a great book for opening up a discussion about death and loss of someone or something dear.
This book and its accompanied conversation guides, will encourage conversations:
- Families can talk about empathy. Have you ever seen someone who was going through the death or loss of someone close? What can you do to help the person?
- If your child is going through grief, how do you help him/her cope with grief?
- What does it mean to "bottle up your emotions", and is it healthy?
Why this book?
Oliver Jeffers’ books are always clever, illustrations strikingly beautiful, and intriguingly unique. Jeffers always seems to be able to speak to the hearts of individuals using only minimal words but very telling pictures that creates the story.
There is so much wonderfulness, and strangeness in this story. Matters of the heart and emotions are always significantly more difficult to explain and understand than we realize, and Jeffers captures that in this book just right. The subtle tone of the message that talks about death from the perspective of how the living carries on living (even after the dead is gone), is an angle that we often don’t talk too much about. It is a picture that isn’t solely for kids; it’s also for adults and all who want to reflect about life and what life brings.
In this deeply moving story, Oliver Jeffers deals with the weighty themes of love and loss with an extraordinary lightness of touch and shows us, ultimately, that there is always hope.
Conversations that you can have with your child
As parents, the greatest lesson we can teach our children is conceptualising loss and pain: from as trivial as losing a toy in school to losing someone dear to your life, because the inevitable cannot be fortified.
Our zest for being parents and thinking what is best for our child makes us weave a cocoon around our children, a cocoon so strong and dense that even the strongest of all pain, rejection and deception will be left ineffectual. But loss is a part of life, very much like eating food or drinking water or just breathing air because death is inevitable and loss is just its shadow.
The illustrations and the pictures address some powerful emotions and the conversation guides help both the parent and the child in understanding that death and loss is as much part of his existence as is life and happiness. They are just two sides of a coin; the side that is flipped around to face you just prepares you for the hind side.
I am Love by Susan Verde + Conversation Guides
How does it benefit my child?
This is a great book for opening up a discussion about what it means to love and identifying simple, practical ways we can show love to those around us.
This book and its accompanied conversation guides, will encourage conversations:
- Families can talk about looking out for someone else. Have you ever seen someone who was going through a storm and found yourself feeling sad for them being sad?
- If you see a friend or classmate having a rough time, what can you do to help them feel better?
- What does it mean to love yourself and how important is it to do that?
Why this book?
'I am love' is a heartwarming book that reminds children from the beginning that they are extraordinary beings. A deceptively simple book that offers a host of opportunities to inspire discussion and plant seeds for thought and action.
Filled with beautiful illustrations and positive affirmations, this book will encourage children to grow confidently into the adult they are to become, knowing they have great power within them. The pages of this beautiful read encourages expressions of kindness and caring toward others and oneself.
Conversations that you can have with your child:
We especially love the main message that is encapsulated in the book, that “each of us is worthy of love in all its forms and expressions, and we are ALL capable of adding light to the world when we listen to our hearts and choose love.” As parents, let’s measure behavior, responses, outcomes, and growth in social-emotional learning by this standard of principles. The values we express, the books we choose to read with children, and the time we invest in SEL-related (Social Emotional Learning) activities directly and dramatically impact instruction.
I Am Love influence how children see themselves and others, how they process information, and the ways in which they interact with peers and instruction.
Read this book aloud to your children, then again at meaningful junctures as the year, and your children, evolve. Spark and continue conversation: What are our benchmarks? Where have we succeeded? How can we grow?