I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I liked this book. The illustrations were colorful and appealing. It had a great simple message about kindness.

What an adorable book. I love a book when they focus on kindness and genuine good people. This with the giving and the kindness was a fun and wholesome story I was happy to share with my kid.

Another great resource from APA! Thank you for the opportunity to review this beautiful book which will be incredibly useful in my clinical practice, This book teaches and promotes optimism and kindness/giving to others, which can help enhance self esteem and resiliency. This is a book that I would recommend to other therapists working with children to promote social and emotional health and wellbeing.

Another cute picture book, but I thought there would be more about actual gardening and being outside, but there was very little of that. It still did have great message. The art is also cute.

Grow Kind
By Jon Lasser & Sage Foster-Lasser
Magination Press/ American Psychological Association

Grow Kind is a story that seeks to encourage children to be kind to others. Kiko, the main character, engages in what is commonly known as Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) by sharing vegetables from the family garden.

This story presents the vegetables as delicious and desirable, addressing a secondary focus on nutrition. Everyone is very happy to receive the garden gifts, even if they are grouchy neighbors or people struggling for one reason or another. As the book says, “Being kind to our friends and neighbors helps them feel good/ And it helps you feel good, too!”

Grow Kind touches briefly upon nutrition, sharing, kindness, and patience. It is a nice book to be read aloud to a kindergarten or first grade class, and would be a great addition to a school’s RAK initiative.

Thank you NetGalley and the APA for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

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This book has a lovely message! I really enjoyed the vibrant illustrations and I think my preschool class students would love this story.

I liked the images and I liked the sentiment, but I thought the character was just too perfectly kind to be true. Yes, of course we want our children to be kind and recognise kindness, but the super kindness might be alienating. I would prefer to explore books in the classroom where there’s a choice or a tension and the characters choose to be kind. Or where the kindness isn’t so explicitly stated so we have space to discuss/engage in quality classroom dialogue.

In this story, Kiko has an abundance of produce from her garden, and during the course of a day, she gets opportunity to share it with her sister, her parents, her neighbors (even one who is a little grumpy!), her friends and teachers, and a complete stranger. At the end of the day, she writes in her journal about how the day has helped her to "grow kind."

This story for children is very basic at first glance, but the endnotes for parents amplify the message and do a fantastic job explaining how children can gradually learn to think about other people's needs. It also provides suggestions for how to incorporate empathy into real-life situations as well as play. An excellent message in an enjoyably small package.

This is a beautifully written story about sharing and giving to others in the name of kindness. It is making others feel good with a simple act of kindness of sharing food from the main character Kiko's garden. I loved the illustrations and the use of diversity in the book. This would be a great addition to a classroom for elementary students for an example of kindness and generosity. It shares many examples of whom the child shared with, including a homeless women. Well written!

I absolutely loved the illustrations in this book, they were bright and colorful and had an interesting mix of colors. Of course, the story was wonderful as well. I love how Kiko is so proud of her garden and wants to share it with everybody. I liked that the portrayal of the person experiencing homelessness was tactfully done, and that they were white- not a stereotypical person of color. There is a hint that might have suggested a same-sex couple (YAY) and there are plenty of diverse faces featured in the illustrations.

Since the book focuses on being kind and cultivating that kindness, I like the fact that there is a note to parents in the back of the book explaining different ideas of introducing kindness and how you can use the book to encourage that.

We love this book! It not only teaches about growing your own food, but also about kindness and sharing. In times like now, it is even more important to show just how kind and loving the world can be, when we all work together and share. This book does just that, with lovely, colourful illustrations to show the story.

This is a delightful book with pages of beautiful illustrations. The story is about kindness and done in a sweet way. Readers get a story that shows how you can relate growing a garden and growing or teaching kindness. It is done in a way to help children understand kindness. Children are encouraged to think about others and feelings in this book. It leads to discussion and is a book well designed to help parents and even teachers or guidance counselors lead a discussion. It is nice to have a sweet story with a helpful lesson that does the job well without overwhelming children with the lesson. It seems like the sweet story it is and the bonus is learning about growing kindness in life.

Lovely! This book encourages spending time outside, gardening, and sharing. A triple whammy! Great addition to the children's collection.

This book is adorable! I love that it has a positive message and the illustrations are adorable! I would definitely put this book in my elementary classroom library!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced digital copy of this book!

This is a cute story about a girl who grows her own veggies and shares them with her family, friends, and neighbors.

Kiko is kind-hearted and generous, but she also learns to be patient when her older sister oversleeps. She wants to share her beautiful garden with her sister and she wants to share her harvest with everyone. There are lots of manners used and kind gestures that really stand out and show the importance of kind behavior. There's even interaction with disadvantaged persons.

This sweet story will help children understand kindness, generosity, empathy, and understanding.

At the very end of the book, there is a rather long note to parents and caregivers in helpful sections about how to use the book as well as tips and resources for how you and your child can practice kindness towards yourself and others.

This is exactly the kind of book I like to buy for my boys. The story is engaging, the illustrations are bright and detailed and the ideals emphasized are so important for all children to learn about.

I appreciate the homeless woman being included in the book. Of course, sharing with family, friends and neighbors is wonderful, but helping the less fortunate is also important. Any book that allows me the opportunity to discuss homelessness (and other social justice issues) with my children in an age appropriate way is always welcome.

I really enjoyed this story and am looking forward to reading the rest of the Grow series!

I love the book, the simple heartwarming story, and it come with good illustration.

The story is about Kiko, a girl who love gardening. She has a dog name Chico and sister named Annie. She is happy because her plants are ready to reap. She want to share it with her friends, family, and other people as well.

With this book, author is hoping can help parents to teach about sharing and emphaty.

This is an adorable book about a girl growing things in her garden and sharing it with her community, the homeless, and her classmates so that she can be kind and make others happy by letting them enjoy what she has. The illustrations are really well done and vibrant.

This is a sweet book published jointly with the APA. The book follows Kiko, who uses her garden to spread kindness. It's easy to read, and the concepts are easy for younger minds to understand. I like that it includes a few pages at the end of the book that caregivers can use to more fully explore these concepts (including some prompts on self-compassion, which I really liked!). It's well illustrated and fun to look at as well. As a new therapist, this is also something I would use with my younger clients.

My favorite types of children books are ones that teach life lessons. Grow Kind teaches children how to share kindness with others and ways to do that.