Celebrate World Kindness Day through literacy and reading!

On November 13^th, 2024, World Kindness Day is a global celebration day designed to raise awareness of the importance of empathy, understanding, and cooperation for the purpose of creating a more peaceful and caring world. World Kindness Day began in 1998 and has been celebrated across the globe in many countries such as Canada, Australia, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and the United States.  Throughout much of the world, Kindness Day has turned into Kindness Week! For 2024, Kindness Week is November 11-17^th, individuals are encouraged to practice kind acts such as donating clothes, books or food to those in need and intentionally empathizing with others. Many libraries celebrate World Kindness Week with special activities and events promoting kindness. Librarians can initiate many community events that showcase intentional acts of kindness and sharing many great books to help foster and inspire people young and old to grow their empathy and practice kindness. The Creative Librarian shares ideas in the article Raising Kind Humans One Student at a time Libraries can organize and manage community-wide kindness activities in addition to highlighting a variety of resources for individuals to grow and exercise more kindness in their daily lives. Podcasts such as the Random Acts of Kindness in Action on The Science of Happiness Podcast sponsored by the Greater Good Science Center at the University of Berkeley address topics such as 24 Hours of Kindness and Making Kindness Contagious are resources to engage adults and stimulate discussions about why kindness matters. Curating kindness resources and raising awareness through literature displays and sharing collocated lists of bibliographies to educators, community members and community partners is another way libraries can become leaders for promoting the celebration of World Kindness Day and into the future.  Online resources for the best lists of books about kindness specific to readers young and old are easily accessible from a host of reputable professional organizations, librarians and library vendors. The following online resources offer brief descriptions and suggestions: Visit the online site of Brightly and read the article Cool to Be Kind: Children’s Books That Champion Kindness that includes a short annotated bibliography with title suggestions for the younger readers. The School of Kindness an organization in the UK offers another online curated list of titles. Library vendor Penguin Random House includes recommended reading both fiction and non-fiction in addition to books for all age levels. Access a sample World Kindness Day brochure here to use. Librarians everywhere on the globe can be on World Kindness Day and everyday, “Be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud” (Maya Angelou).

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