A book can help with
For learning that other people have a whole inside world too.
Empathy isn’t something a child either has or hasn’t. It builds slowly, out of noticing faces, hearing how things landed on somebody else, and gradually working out that other people carry a whole inside world you can’t see.
Stories are unusually good at this, and not by accident: reading puts a child inside another person’s head for half an hour, which is perspective-taking practice whether they notice it or not. The books here go further, because they hand a child two points of view on the same event and let them feel the difference.
Here’s what I’d reach for. Find your child’s age and start there. The kindness page sits close to this one.
Noticing somebody else
A toddler is only just working out that other people have insides of their own. What follows shows one character noticing what another one needs, which is where the whole thing begins.
Tortoise wants a hug and nobody will give him one because of the shell, and Hedgehog wants a hug and nobody will go near the spikes. It is a flip book: you read it from one end, turn it over, and read it from the other. The two halves meeting in the middle is the whole point, and a two year old gets it straight away.
or on Bookshop.org
Colin is a carrot living among peas and cannot do a single thing the peas can do, and the peas think he is marvellous regardless. Very few words, very funny, and the joke lands for a toddler and for you at the same time. It gets at difference without once using the word.
or on Bookshop.org
How it looks to them
At this age it’s about noticing that somebody else might be feeling something different from you, and wondering why.
Emily is set the task of noticing how other people are feeling, and spends a day paying attention to the faces around her, with surprising results. It turns empathy into something a child can actively practise rather than an idea. Simple and effective, and often used in classrooms.
or on Bookshop.org
Chloe is certain her classmate is lying about owning a horse, and is determined to prove it, until she understands something about his life and stops needing to be right. It’s beautifully done, and it teaches the harder half of empathy: letting go of being correct. Quietly moving.
or on Bookshop.org
Two sides to it
Older children can hold two conflicting accounts at once, which is where real perspective-taking begins.
Jeremy desperately wants the shoes everyone at school has, can’t afford them, and then faces a choice about a boy who needs them more. It handles wanting, going without and generosity all at once, without a scrap of preaching. One of the best picture books there is for this age.
or on Bookshop.org
Told in turn by Auggie, his sister, his friends and even those who are unkind, so a reader is made to see the same events through several sets of eyes. Structurally it does exactly what empathy does. A modern classic, and it genuinely changes how children see the playground.
or on Bookshop.org
Lives unlike their own
Older children can hold somebody else’s circumstances in mind without needing it spelled out, which is the point at which a novel does more than a conversation would.
Joe has lived in one hospital room his whole life because his immune system cannot cope with the world, and his window on it is a nurse, a laptop and superhero comics. Written with real tenderness and not a scrap of pity. The ending asks something of the reader.
or on Bookshop.org
Dolphin adores her tattooed, unpredictable mother and covers for her constantly, and her older sister is the one holding the household together. It is the clearest book I know for helping a child understand somebody whose mind works against them. Mental illness and a family coming apart, so read it first.
or on Bookshop.org
Book links are Amazon affiliate links, meaning I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. More on this.
Something to do together
A page for retelling something that happened from the other person’s point of view, which is harder and more useful than it sounds. I’m making it now, and it will live here soon.
Researchers who study this find that reading stories is genuinely linked to better perspective-taking, which is a rather good reason to keep the bedtime reading going long after a child can manage alone.
So ask how they think the other child felt rather than telling them, name feelings out loud in everyday life, and let them see you consider somebody else’s side even when you disagree with it. Empathy is caught far more than it’s taught.
These pages are written for the grown-ups looking after a child: parents, teachers and carers. A good book can sit beside a worried child, though it never stands in for a real conversation, or for proper support when something feels too big to carry alone.