Cover Image: Choose Kindness: 3-Minute Devotional Inspiration for Kids

Choose Kindness: 3-Minute Devotional Inspiration for Kids

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Member Reviews

This seems like a great kids devotional. I only ended up reading a few of them. I had hoped that this would work for young children in Kindergarten and 1st grade but this is just not the right book for this age range, I love that the devotional talks about kindness though as I have spent a great deal of time trying to instill kindness and helping them recognize kindness in their world.

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This devotional for kids about kindness has a good premise but I didn't care for the set up where the author was praying to God. It felt as if she was telling God about Himself and in a way that a kid wouldn't know about or get.
Thank you Net Galley for the opportunity to review this book for my honest review.

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Choose Kindness is a children’s devotional written by JoAnne Simmons.
My Thoughts: So, I don’t like to write not-nice things about a book because the author spent a lot of time and energy creating said book, and that is nothing to sneeze at.
I like the idea that we all need a little more kindness in our lives, and it is a good thing to study, but I just did not care for how this book was set up.
Each entry starts with a scripture, and ends with a “think about it” question (I liked that) and there is a prayer in the middle.
The prayer is written as if the author is talking to God. This would be fine, except it is written how maybe the author prays? It is very wordy, and I don’t think it is how a child would pray at all. It seems very specific to the person writing this book.
This section could have been much more user-friendly had it either been written to the child as a devotional-style passage, or simplified greatly so that a child could repeat it as a prayer to God.
Overall, I felt this book wasn’t as user-friendly as it could have been, which is too bad, because I do like the idea behind the book.
Unfortunately, this is a book I would not recommend without some changes.
I would like to thank Barbour Publishing, Inc. for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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The world needs more kindness, and this is a wonderfully written devotional to inspire young children to be kind to others and themselves. This book also teaches children how to pray, have patience, and be grateful, in good times and bad. I highly recommend this book for children ages 8+, and for families to read and discuss together.

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This delightful devotional encourages kids to get off their phones and various screens and spend some contemplative time quietly nourishing their minds, hearts and spirits as they meditate on the unconditional love of God for them.

The 3-minute readings take little time to read but the truth embedded in each and every one will have a long term impact. Each segment offers comfort, encouragement and inspiration to those who read it.

The content is broken down as follows:

Minute 1: Meditate on a scripture selection
Minute 2: Read through a devotional-like prayer created for kids
Minute 3: Read a question for further reflection.

Taking three short minutes out of their day will have kids thinking about and acting out words and deeds of kindness to those around them. What the world needs to day and every day is kindness. I highly recommend this book.

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Disappointing on several fronts:
No illustrations ( the audience is kids);
Organizational ambiguity- there are various offshoots to the ‘kindness’ theme, but it was unclear what the subtropics are... no table of contents.
Formatting- one bible verse printed; one “Dear God” prayer. No explanation of the verse and at times it’s a stretch to comprehend the segue from the verse to the prayer, especially if the audience is kids!
There are better and much more engaging resources available for devotions.

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Choose Kindness 3-Minutes Devotional Inspiration for Kids by Joanne

Simmons is an original new book by Barbour all dedicated to children. This time it's their time for reflecting, with devotionals clearly dedicated to them. Great profoundity these prayers are written for let understand to all children their role as christians in the world and how they can play a good job in the society, helping others, being kind with other people but also in their family and with themselves, praying, being grateful for good situations, and when things are hectic at home asking to being more patients for not altering much more the atmosphere of pain and sufferance.
At the same time there are prayers for being kind to older people; for being there to them, for being helpful, for listening to them and their wise words. There are prayers for every occasions; schools, friends, for homeless and needy; but also thinking at funny moments, when children play at the park or in the kitchen; children can ask to being peacemakers, good people in the sociel tissue, but devotionals are absolutely many and all in their beauty, of great help to these children.

I found this book fresh, and absolutely a good reading for your children.

Highly recommended.

I thank NetGalley and Barbour for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori

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Based on a Bible verse, every devotional gives the family (kids and parents) an opportunity to pray, discuss and learn about what God aspects from us.
Is is a useful resource for parents, grandparents and Christian educators.

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Each devotional starts off with a Bible verse (New Life Version), followed by a prayer that can be read aloud with kids, and a discussion question for adults and kids to reflect on and talk about together. The major theme of the devotions is God's love and kindness and how we can live in a way that reflects God's kindness to others. There is also a Scripture index at the end, listed by book of the Bible / verse reference. The target audience seems to be elementary school and older.

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First of all, thank you NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book in return for an honest review. This was a very sweet book of bible verses followed by prayers and a discussion question. I loved the theme of kindness in all situations (from kindness towards parents or siblings to kindness towards classmates and teachers.) I wish that there was more discussion about practical implementations of this kindness instead of just a verse and prayer. The one discussion question at the end of each devotional did open dialog among my kids, but I feel they could have used more opportunities for discussion. All in all a very sweet family devotional.

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I received this ARC from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book chooses bible verses and uses them to help explore kindness in every day situations. This would be perfect for a Catholic school class, religious education program, or family reading to use these to talk about how children (and adults) can draw inspiration from these verses to work toward a more kind practice.

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This is a book of prayers and devotional readings for kids. The readings are short—they take just a few minutes during our morning devotional time in school. My kids are 5-12 and all listen and understand.

I appreciate how the author points to Jesus. In one of the very first devotionals, kindness is viewed as bubbling out of us and touching others. These bubbles of kindness come from God’s love overflowing out of us.

Another thing I like about this book is the conversational prayers. My kids (and myself, I guess) often get stuck in habitual prayers. Each of these prayers lead the kids in a conversation with Jesus about kindness, their own lives, and others.

This is a good book. I recommend it for kids and families. While we do it during our homeschool morning hour, it would also be great for a bedtime devotional book.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher through NetGalley. I was not required to give a positive review. The thoughts and opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

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Great book for kids to read on their own. It was difficult to read through the prayers with my kiddos, but I did enjoy the questions after each verse. Personally, I would have liked a quick lesson, and a shorter prayer rather than a verse, and prayer. However, the questions were great for conversation starts.

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Loved this! Short little devotions for young people. So nice to read maybe at breakfast before school. They would have it on their heart all day. The world needs more of this.

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Teaching kids to choose kindness is a great gift for them. It makes it harder to get bogged down by negativity and become mean and unthoughtful. Spending a few minutes to center yourself everyday gives them a valuable gift and helps shape their attitude to hopefully becoming a better person.

I received an advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review.

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What a great mini devotional book for kids! Our children loved it and still continue to reread it daily!

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for an arc copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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