What If We Were All Kind! - C.M. Harris - ★★★.¼

AUTHOR: C.M. Harris

ILLUSTRATOR: Vitor Lopes

GENRE: Children's Picture Book

PUBLICATION DATE: April 1, 2025

RATING: 3.25 stars.

In a Nutshell: A picture book with an important lesson. Inclusive illustrations + meaningful text. Feels a bit forced at times, but worth a read for the message and the tips.

As the question in the title suggests, this book imagines a world where people always try to be kind to each other. In actions and in words, their aim is to be good and do good. Is such a world really possible? Not sure about adults, but for children, forgiving and forgetting comes more easily. They fight one minute and patch up the next. This book takes that same attitude and aims to make it a natural response instead of an exception.

The book obviously has an idealistic tone, with its depiction of a perfect world and perfect kindness all the time. But if even some of its tips are implemented by little (and not so little) readers, the world will surely be a better place.

The entire text contains rhetorical questions, ways of implementing kindness, and the consequences of the same. I like that it included practical ideas on how to be kind. Abstract concepts always work better if they come with tangible examples, and this book handles this aspect nicely. I also love that it included animals and nature in the target of recipients.

No matter how I wish to be kind to a book about kindness, reviewing has to stay unbiased. While I liked the concept of the book, the implementation could have done with a little finetuning.

Firstly, I wish the content had been a little more structured. The lines switch between platitudes and implementation ideas at random. Sometimes, the verses don’t even feel connected. Take these lines for instance;

“We can travel near and far,
where we’re accepted as we are.
Helping a friend or someone new,
is something we really ought to do.”

These two verses are one below the other on the same page. But there is no apparent link between them. (At least, I cannot see any.)

Another problem is that there is no incremental development. The book offers behavioural tips jumping back and forth across home, school and community at random. As such, the overall feel is a bit disjointed. The general lines about the value of kindness also feel repetitive after a point. One part about the text that I couldn’t bring myself to accept was the line about “no more anger”. I think picture books should stop shaming anger as it is a natural human emotion. Suppression of anger can lead to all kinds of physical and mental issues, so a better approach would be to indicate how to handle anger with patience and kindness.

As seen above, the text is written in simple rhythmic prose. I am not the biggest fan of rhymes in picture books, but I appreciate them when they get the syllabic meter on point as this makes the books easy to read aloud. This one is more of a hit-or-miss. The rhymes feel forced on many pages. Also, the text randomly switches between first person plural and second person. It should have had either “we” or “you”, not both, considering how the entire text is aimed at the same reader.

The illustrations are mostly adorable. Every page is full of beautiful detailing with bright colours. The graphics are also very inclusive, with the kids and adults covering a range of ethnic groups, with diverse skin colours, hair types (and even baldness), and facial features across the characters. For the first time ever, I saw a picture book character wearing a hearing aid – how awesome is that! However, a part of me feels like it took the inclusivity too far. There are six distinct children in wheelchairs across the pages. This number doesn’t even include two more children using crutches (for a bandaged foot) and one with a walking frame. If the scenes come from the same classroom in the same school, then these numbers do feel exaggerated. One of the pages is half covered by the globe (not to scale), and there are kids shown on different parts of it. Three of the kids are clearly standing on the ocean water!

There are some interesting discussion questions at the end of the book. Thee are bound to be very helpful in drilling the point firmly across.

All in all, I do love the intent of the book but I feel that the implementation could have been better. A little restructuring of the text would have helped the content deliver a greater impact.

Still, the aim is a worthy one, and some of the included ideas are quite practical. So the book could contribute towards a nice discussion in classrooms and homes. The text would work well for ages 2-7.

My thanks to Purple Diamond Press Inc. for providing the DRC of “What If We Were All Kind!” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.