Teach the children well

It's always a good day when I get to spend time with my grandbabies. Charlotte Rose (aka Charlee) is almost 3, and little Chloe (her sister calls her CoCo) is a year and a half. It's an even better day when I get to experience story time with them before they go to bed.

On one of those days, I headed over the bridge to have dinner with the family. After bath time, a joyful and sometimes rowdy event with lots of splashing and play, came story time. CoCo was already in bed. Charlee curled up beside her dad and settled in to listen to a few stories.

There is no dearth of books at the Charlee and CoCo house! Two bookshelves are full of children's books, and Charlee has quite a few favorites. That particular night, one of the books was "Little Blue Truck." If you have children or grandchildren, you probably know about this book. It's been around since 2008 and is quite popular. There are many books that have since been published about the little blue truck, all written by Alice Schertle and illustrated by Jill McElmurry.

I love to hear my son Dylan read to his kids. He does it with such enthusiasm and uses different voices and sounds for the different characters. "Little Blue Truck" is a story about a truck that makes friends with the farm animals in his neighborhood. In the first book, a yellow dump truck appears and is quite rude to the animals. I won't spoil the rest of the story for you, but as you might guess, it has themes of friendship, helping others, teamwork, and kindness.

Many of the books on my grandkids' shelves teach about these themes. They also teach about the wrongness of bullying (like the Pout-Pout Fish and the Bully-Bully Shark), and emotions like grumpiness (Grumpy Monkey comes to mind).

I am so proud of my son and his wife Courtney. They are amazing parents and are raising their girls with such love and kindness — by modeling and by reading books that share the importance of these traits.

So when you have the opportunity to read to a child and teach them a lesson about kindness, check out "Little Blue Truck." You can even find someone reading the book aloud on YouTube! One of my favorite readings is below. And there are so many more books out there about kindness. You can simply Google "books about kindness for children" — or better yet, visit one of our local bookstores or the library.

Happy reading!

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If you have a story you'd like to share here in the Fernandina Observer - about a neighbor or friend or stranger or business that showed kindness, or about kindness and compassion in general - please contact Peggie Weeks at pegweeks@gmail.com