Courageous Conversations in the Classroom: Using Children's Literature to Support Social and Emotional Growth, Positive Identity, and Mental Health

A complete classroom toolkit for grades 3–6, this book empowers teachers to leverage high-quality children's literature to boost emotional well-being, positive self-identities, social awareness, and civic engagement. Nine thematic instructional units are built around carefully curated book sets. Teachers are guided to spark meaningful conversations and foster empathy by exploring challenging themes like friendship, bullying, racism, disability, and mental health, through read-alouds and expert-designed activities. Step-by-step lesson plans include ready-to-use scripts, activities, and discussion prompts—all aligned with current academic and social and emotional learning standards. The Appendix features 30 reproducible and downloadable worksheets and handouts; the large-size format facilitates photocopying.