Diversifying Your Read Aloud Collection: Resolving Conflict, Compromise, Friendship
Helping our students learn to resolve conflicts, compromise, develop new friendships, and maintain old friendships even as they change is one of the best things we can do to help them live a peaceful, full-filled life and to try to maintain some harmony in our classrooms. Last month I told you that over the summer, I felt compelled to re-evaluate my go-to picture books to ensure that the books I use to teach different topics represents a diverse group of characters and authors. This post is the second installment of four posts where I’ll share old favorites and new picture book titles that will help make your read aloud selections more diverse and inclusive. In this post, I focus on books that relate to Resolving Conflict, Compromise, and Friendship. If you missed my first post, click here.
A NOTE ABOUT DIVERSITY IN BOOK COLLECTIONS
In my quest to have an inclusive collection of picture books, I relied heavily on research from The Conscious Kid, “an education, research, and policy organization dedicated to equity and promoting healthy racial identity development in youth.” The Conscious Kid put together “a curated list of teacher-facing materials and evaluation criteria to affirm and reflect students’ identities and to help facilitate important conversations about equity, racism, and belonging.”
The Conscious Kid has 14 helpful guidelines and questions to consider when selecting inclusive books. I found the guidelines to be extremely helpful and enlightening. I recommend checking out the entire 9 page document, but I thought I’d highlight some of the guidelines to note in reference to relationship building themes like resolving conflict, compromise, and friendship:
Watch for Invisibility: Having an absence or minimal portrayal of different groups teaches young people about their perceived worth by showing whose stories and lives are worthy of being celebrated (Many of the books in this list do this!)
Support Counter Stories: Include texts that oppose deficit narratives of people of color and that instead center the knowledge and experiences of marginalized groups
Beware of tokenism in books: Avoid books that only show “one” person of a given group
Foster healthy racial identity: Counter whiteness as the norm or definition of success; avoid books where characters only succeed when conforming to white values or norms
Choose social justice books: Push back against embedded biases and reinforced values of sexism, racism, or ableism
Consider the author’s background: Choose books written by authors who are members of the community they write about (These have been noted in the list)
Seek out specificity: Avoid books that generalize experiences of race, culture, or ethnicity and instead select books that provide specific and nuanced experiences
Once I have tackled establishing my classroom community by teaching my students about belonging, kindness, compassion, and individualism during the first several weeks of school, I like to turn the focus to resolving conflict, compromise, and friendship. Below are some old favorites and new titles I have discovered to ensure that my picture book collection is more diverse when teaching about these topics.
Note: Links to the suggested read alouds in this post are affiliate links. This means that I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. Read my full disclosure here.
PICTURE BOOKS ABOUT RESOLVING CONFLICTS
The Forgiveness Garden by Lauren Thompson (POC)
This story takes place in a divided community made up predominantly with people of color. Two towns have been enemies for as long as anyone can remember. When a boy from one town throws a stone and injures a girl from the other town, anger and unrest begins to boil. Calls for more hatred and acts of revenge come from both communities. However, the injured girl decides to break the past cycle of hatred and revenge and attempts to resolve the ongoing conflict.
The First Strawberries by Joseph Bruchac* (POC)
The First Strawberries is a re-telling of a Cherokee legend explaining how strawberries came to be. The story takes place when man and woman were first created to live together. One day the man and woman get into a disagreement and the woman angrily leaves with no intention of returning. As the man follows his wife to seek forgiveness, the sun tries to help slow down the woman’s pace by placing various ripened fruits in her path to try to distract her. This book is a simple, yet captivating story that has themes of forgiveness and anger management strategies weaved throughout.
COMPROMISE-THEMED PICTURE BOOKS
The Great Compromise by Julia Cook (BIPOC)
The Great Compromise features two equally strong-willed, persistent students who are competing to be the leader of their class, one of them is black and the other is white. Their unwillingness to compromise finds them in several situations that end unpleasantly. Using rhymes and relatable situations, Julia Cook teaches readers the importance of compromise and how it is a powerful tool that the best leaders rely on in order to be successful.
Four Feet, Two Sandals by Karen Lynn Williams (POC)
This story takes place in a refugee camp in Pakistan where many families have fled Afghanistan’s war grounds in search of safety. When a relief organization brings used clothing to the camp, Lina, a ten year old girl, is delighted to find a beautiful sandal among the clothes. Much to her surprise though, she discovers that another girl, Feroza, has found its matching pair among the goodies. At first, each girl decides to keep and wear their single sandal (a good example of compromise where both individuals get something, but that is nonsensical). However, the girls quickly decide that it makes more sense to share the sandals as a pair and they begin taking turns wearing the shoes as they go about their daily chores washing clothes in the river, and retrieving water for their families. Their friendship develops quickly and they find solace in sharing their somber experiences with each other. One day, one of the girls’ names gets placed on “the list” of refugees that will leave the following day for America. Their heart-warming good-bye illustrates the beauty of friendship, compromise, and hope.
The Day No One Played Together: A Story About Compromise by Donalisa Helsley* (BIPOC)
Jadyn and Genesis are sisters that want to play together, but each one wants the other to follow their lead and play the game they’ve chosen. They wind up frustrated, alone, and unhappy. When they talk to their mom about the problem, she suggests that they compromise. Mom teaches the girls what compromise is and gives numerous examples. Jadyn and Genesis try this new strategy out and discover that when they compromise, they are able to play together and are much happier.
FRIENDSHIP-THEMED PICTURE BOOKS
Four Feet, Two Sandals by Karen Lynn Williams (POC)
* See description above!
Pink Tiara Cookies for Three by Maria Dismondy (BIPOC, POC)
Sami and Stella are best friends who do everything together. One day a girl named Jasmine moves into their neighborhood. Sami quickly starts to feel that three is a crowd. She begins to resent Jasmine and doesn’t want to share her best friend with another person. Sami starts to treat Jasmine unkindly. When Jasmine goes out of her way to help Sami out of an embarrassing situation, Sami starts to realize that she needs to let go of her old thought process and make room for a new friend.
WHERE TO FIND MORE SUGGESTIONS TO ADD DIVERSITY TO YOUR BOOK COLLECTIONS
I am very appreciative of the following teachers and websites who do the hard work of sharing represent diversity and inclusivity in their picture book recommendations.
Jillian Fine-Heiss’s #classroombookaday Facebook Group
We Need Diverse Books on Instagram
The Conscious Kid on Instagram and Facebook
Click here for all of my blog posts for recommended read alouds
Reading aloud picture books is one of the key strategies I use to engage students in discussions during morning meetings. I connect my morning meetings through theme-based units where I’m able to teach social emotional skills, character education, and strengthen the classroom community. If you want to learn more about theme-based morning meetings, you can find blog posts on so many other topics here. But, don’t leave before you grab your free morning meeting resources for teaching a sense of belonging! This free theme unit is packed with lesson ideas, student journal pages, discussion prompts, self-reflections, bulletin board materials, and more! YES! Everything you see below for the belonging theme is FREE! If you need resources for virtual morning meetings or remote learning, I’ve got you covered with Google Slides versions of each theme set, too!
THEMES TO GUIDE YOUR MORNING MEETINGS ALL YEAR LONG
If you’d like more social emotional theme units with a focus on encouraging students’ social, emotional, and academic success, you may be interested in the Morning Meeting Mega Bundle of 17 theme units. With units focused on kindness, compassion, growth mindset, gratitude, perseverance, responsibility, managing emotions, and so much more, your engaging morning meeting plans are done for you and your students will love them! You can save 10% on the Mega Bundle of all 17 themes with the code MM10.
Any other read alouds you’d add to this list for conflict, compromise, and friendship? If so, let me know!