Bucket Fillers Children's Books

Reviewed by Beverley Paine, The Educating Parent

Have You Filled a Bucket Today?

David Messings engaging bright and colourful illustrations are detailed enough to hold the younger child's attention as the words gently bring their attention to purpose of the rainbow stars and hearts magically transferring between buckets. Happy and good thoughts and deeds are represented by smiling buckets overflowing with colourful hearts and stars. Sad and crying faces on the buckets, with hearts and stars cascading from them and spilled onto the floor, introduce the idea of 'bucket dipping', which happens when we hurt, offend or ignore others. In this simple but effective way, author Carol McCloud encourages children to actively build positive relationships through acts of kindness, appreciation and by showing love.

This gentle instructional book can help children feel okay about and manage their emotional life, giving them a practical tool to think about how their behaviour not only affects their friends and family but their own lives too. It encourages children to reflect on their own behaviour and to build empathy. The title, Have You Filled a Bucket Today?, is a simple can also act as a gentle reminder of the message of the book, bringing alive in the child's mind again the concept and purpose of the invisible bucket full of delightful hearts and stars.

I Speak Peace

I Speak Peace helps young children explore and understand the concept and importance of peace. It begins by introducing the practice of mindfulness through the simple and effective technique of using our breath to focus on our thoughts. It encourages children to become aware and tolerant of diversity while recognising that we all share common needs, especially to belong and to be loved, as well as a shared responsibility to look after each other and our world.

In simple but powerful words and illustrations, author Kate Carroll and illustrator Rainer M Osinger show the practical and important ways peaceful and respectful relationships can be built and maintained.

Will You Fill My Bucket?

The first thing I noticed about this lovely and engaging book for children is that it rhymes. I love a good rhyming book and so do my grandchildren. The other clear winning hook for me was the map of the world on the first page - as a seasoned home educator I am always seeking to gently expand my grandchildren's understanding of the world about them, and love their excited responses at the natural sense of adventure this brings. From there the book takes us back to the very personal world of the child, powerfully reminding us that the emotional needs of children everywhere are the same.

The beautiful and joyful illustrations by Penny Weber gently reinforce the message that we humans are diverse in many ways but our buckets - which represent our need for unconditional love and emotional security - are all the same. Through the first half of the book authors Carol McCloud and Karen Wells show practical ways children ask for their buckets to be filled, and these are then reassuringly answered by their families, joy and happiness bouncing out of the colourful illustrations. The final message, that the act of filling others' buckets helps to fill our own buckets, is one that is explored in other books in the Bucket Filling series.

Since the publication of her first bucket filling book in 2006, author Carol McCloud has worked to spread the simple message to audiences of all ages and sizes, motivating each person to make the choice to build positive, affirming relationships. Drawing on the earlier work of Dr Donald Clifton and his grandson Tom Rath, together with Dr Clifton's 50 years of research as well as that of others promoting the idea of 'bucket filling', McCloud builds on a movement that seeks to teach practical steps to encourage empathy and positive behaviours in children and people of all ages. Through a series of books as well as workshops McCloud and her team actively promote 'bucket filling' character development to schools and communities. Learn more about Bucket Fillers .

Empathy Books, a new Australian book distributor, has partnered with Bucket Fillers Inc. to bring their range of excellent resources and books to families, schools, workplaces and communities across Australia.