Title – Each Kindness
Author(s) – Jacqueline Woodson
Illustrator/Photographer – E.B. Lewis
Publisher and Year – The Penguin Group 2012
Number of pages – 28 pages
Tags/Themes – Rylie Loux, Emotion, K-1, Friendship
Genre – Realistic Fiction
Descriptive Annotation: This story is about a girl named Chloe who chooses not to welcome the new girl, Maya, into her friend group at school. Maya is different because she wears hand-me-downs and plays with old-fashioned toys. Every time Maya tries to join Chloe and her friends, they reject her. One day, after Chloe’s teacher teaches the class a lesson about the importance of kindness, and how the smallest acts can change the world. This causes Chloe to decide that she is going to start including Maya. However, Maya moved away so Chloe lost her opportunity to start a new friendship.
Classroom Application: This is a perfect resource for engaging students in an anti-bullying lesson. By bringing this book to the classroom, it can help express the issue of bullying into the class and how to prevent it and help kids who are experiencing it. The ideology that is presented in this story is the importance of kindness and acceptance of others. Having students understand that each and everything they do, makes a difference on someone else. “This is what kindness does, Ms. Albert said. Each little thing we do goes out, like a ripple, into the world.” To incorporate this into a lesson, it would include sticking up for your friends, acting as a leader, and analyzing how students being left out might feel. This story also describes a situation where what if you’re cruel to someone and never get the chance to make it right?
Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: Throughout this story we see bullying and socioeconomic status are two different aspects of diversity that were displayed. The setting of this story takes place in a classroom. This gives the students the ability to see themselves in this situation. This story gives students a way to learn the importance of accepting one another and never excluding another student on purpose.