Books About Hospitality for Kids
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The character trait we are focusing on this week is hospitality. These books about hospitality for kids should aid you as you aim to parent your children to be pleasant contributors to this world. I hope you are following along with my character development series. We work on 52 character traits throughout the year – one for each week of the year. If you hover over my character development tab, you will see all of the traits we work on throughout the year. I have many other lessons on hospitality that should help you raise your kids to learn about how to make people feel more welcomed and comfortable.
Hugless Douglas and the Big Sleepover
– This was a cute story. It wasn’t overtly about hospitality, but there were elements in it in that rabbit was very welcoming and wanted make sure there was plenty of room for everyone at the sleepover. Despite the small nature of rabbit’s hole, this host remained positive that they could make it work. He wanted to make sure everyone felt welcome. I enjoyed the illustrations, the story, and it was just an adorable little book.
Pigs, Pigs, Pigs!
– This is a cute little book about a town that loves to welcome the pigs in for a celebration. They hear the pigs are coming so they make all sorts of preparations, especially with food, to assure the pigs are well cared for when they arrive. There is a huge pig party and they “pig out.” It’s a cute book with cute illustrations. The book is a rhyming book with a good cadence.
Rosy’s Visitors
– We enjoyed this book. A little girl named Rosy has an amazing “home” in a big tree. She makes it her own. She cares for it and treats it with care. It’s the kind of imaginative play I remember as a child in our “forest” in the back yard. I love how Rosy is especially keen to maker her home ready for guests when they arrive. Do they arrive? Yes, they do. Fairies, bears, dancing cats, jesters, and other children are just some that join the party and feast. She parties with them while they are there and cleans up when they leave. I love how this book captures a child’s imagination.
Moopy the Underground Monster (Monster Friends)
– This story is about an underground monster named Moopy. He likes to keep to himself and hospitality doesn’t come naturally to him. However, there is another monster who is in need of his kindness. Although hesitant to get involved too much, he is drawn to compassion in offering food and help. What Moopy learns from these uncomfortable act of hospitality is that when he is in need of help, his new friend is willing to show hospitality in return.
Goldie and the Three Hares
– This is a funny book. “Goldie” is running away from the bears and falls into the rabbit hole and hurts her food. The thing you might not know about Goldie is that she is high maintenance. She has quite the attitude and feels pretty entitled. The hares try to be hospitable and accommodate her, but she is pretty impossible to have as a house guest. Their hospitality, therefore, is short lived as they try and figure out a way to get this “big little girl” out of their home. The author uses humor in her writing style. The illustrations are a lot of fun as well. I enjoyed the way the author developed the characters, and I thought it was a clever twist to the traditional “Goldie Locks and the Three Bears.”
Seven Fathers
– I found this book very strange. It was about a cold and weary traveller needing a place to stay. He comes upon a house and asks the boy he finds for a place to stay. The boy directs him inside the house to his father. Well, that father passes him on to another father…and then another…and another…and another. It keeps going and the fathers each were much older than the last when finally he comes to a little miniature father inside a horn, who welcomes him. He is then shown hospitality. Then, the fathers change into kings. This is a re-telling of a Norwegian folktale. The writing was well done, and I enjoyed the illustrations. However, I didn’t like the story. It didn’t make sense to me. That said, the kids didn’t mention that they thought it was weird.
Mama Panya’s Pancakes
– This was a fabulous book. First of all, I’ve been to Kenya, so the mix of Swahili in with the English took me back and made me smile. There were just common Swahili greetings mentioned, but it is great to get pieces of the culture in the language, setting and story development. Mama Panya has a very hospitable, sociable and friendly young son named Adika. He knows his mom is headed to the market to buy flour so she can make some pancakes. It is obvious that they have little, and the two small coins she has won’t stretch far. Despite that, her son continues to greet people and invite them over for pancakes. The mom has no idea how she’ll be able to make pancakes for so many, but she learns a valuable lesson from her son in both hospitality and generosity. When you give, people want to bless you as well. This is a warm story with lovely pictures and paints a beautiful picture of life in a different culture.
Yonderfel’s Castle: A Medieval Fable
RELATIVES CAME
– I quite enjoyed this book. I guess I’m not the only once since it is is a Caldecott Honor book. The colored pencil illustrations were lovely and capturing…almost too capturing. My daughter kept pausing at weird times in her reading to thoroughly explore every picture to take in all the details. This is a pleasant story about relatives that live a distance from each other gathering together during the summer. This reminds me a little bit about when I go up to visit my sister where she lives. We don’t get to see each other as often as I’d like, and when we gather it feels like a village doing life together. The hosting family opens up their home and everyone feels comfortable and is welcome. People are sleeping all over the place and things felt “different…with all that new breathing in the house.” Everyone just seemed happy to be gathering together and made life work as a whole unit. I love it.
