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Hello, and welcome to October! As a Children’s Librarian (for over 15 years), I go by the name Miss Michelle. My sister is letting me take over her blog for a monthly column where I can recommend some of my favorite children’s books. Let’s start with a few picture books you can use with your children to help teach them manners.

Learning about Manners: Saying Please

Please Mr. Panda by Steve Antony

I have loved this book from the first time I read it because it’s offbeat and hilarious. Mr. Panda has a dozen donuts, and he offers them to other animals one by one. Each time, after the animal says yes, Mr. Panda says, “No, you may not have a donut. I have changed my mind.” Finally, the lemur says please and Mr. Panda lets him have all of the donuts, admitting that he does not like them anyway. My kids and I enjoy the book for its humor, but then I was putting it into Goodreads and saw someone else’s review and it was a revelation. (Of course, now that I’m looking for the review to link to it here, I can’t seem to find it again.)

I took the idea from this review and it works very well for me. It’s simple. Read this book with your child. Talk about why so many animals did not get a donut (because they didn’t say please), and why the lemur was given all the donuts when he did say please. Stress that this does not happen every time – that just because they say please, which is polite and important, does not mean they will always get their way. But then take the lesson out of the book and into the real world. When my son says, “I want a snack,” I tell him, “No, you may not have a donut. I have changed my mind,” and he laughs and tries again with a please added in. When my daughter says, “I need a pen”? Same thing. I smile and say gently, “No, you may not have a donut. I have changed my mind.” She rolls her eyes (because she’s 9) and says please. I encourage you to try this with your own child.

Note: This is the first in a series. I have read a few other Mr. Panda books but in my opinion, they have been unable to recreate the magic of this book.

Learning about Manners: Empathy

We Don’t Eat Our Classmates by Ryan T. Higgins

We start with Penelope Rex at home, nervous about her first day at school. When she gets to school she sees that she is the only dinosaur in her class. She doesn’t know how to make friends, so she eats all of her classmates. The teacher admonishes her, and she spits them back up, and they continue on with their day. It takes a few tries, and a carnivorous goldfish, but in the end Penelope learns that the best way to make a friend is to be a friend… and to not eat her classmates.

On the surface this book does not seem to apply to home-schoolers, but lessons in empathy apply to everyone. Penelope does not like being chomped on, therefore she shouldn’t chomp on anyone else. You can talk to your child about this in a lot of other contexts – maybe you have a daughter who keeps taking a younger brother’s toy but gets angry when her own toy is the one that’s stolen. Remind your daughter that Penelope didn’t like when the fish bit her, and point out that the way your daughter feels is the same way her brother feels when she takes his toys.

Note: I recently found out that this is also the first in a series, but I have yet to read the others.

Learning about Manners: the Golden Rule

Do Unto Otters by Laurie Keller

Everyone knows the golden rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. In this play on the way it sounds, a rabbit doesn’t know how to act around his new otter neighbors. An owl suggests he treat the otters the way he would like them to treat him, which the rabbit decides including saying polite words (which the book shares in several languages) and being kind and considerate.

When my daughter’s first grade teacher read this to her class at the beginning of the school year, I understood why she chose that timing. Whether in the classroom at a school or in a homeschool environment, the beginning of the year is a perfect time to remind kids about manners and common courtesy. There’s humor in the book, but also a lot of valid educational moments.

Learning about Manners: a Little Bit of Everything

Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood

Okay, so this is not a book, although there are books based on this PBS Kids show. My daughter loved watching Daniel Tiger when she was little, starting from about 18 months old through when she was in Kindergarten. The show is based on The Land of Make-Believe from Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, which I watched when I was little. [Ignore my sister reminding me that at 5’1”, I am still little.] Daniel Tiger is the son of Daniel Striped Tiger. Katerina Kittycat is the daughter of Henrietta Pussycat and throws in a “meow, meow” here and there when speaking just like her mother. O the Owl is the nephew of X the owl (he’s the neighborhood librarian, which is awesome). Prince Tuesday from the old show is now an older brother to Daniel’s friend Prince Wednesday, and their parents King Friday and Queen Sara Saturday still reign.

Daniel Tiger and his friends learn a lot of lessons, which makes the show an awesome tool for teaching your child manners. For a few years my DVR had every single episode recorded for reference as needed. The lessons are shared in short songs, which make it easy to remind your child at other times. When my daughter spilled her water, for example, I would sing, “Saying I’m sorry is the first part, then how can I help?” If I forgot which episode had a particular lesson, the Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood Wiki was a huge help. The show didn’t catch on for my son like it did with my daughter, which is a shame, but we’ve still used some of the songs with him.

Check out Miss Michelle’s Book Nook

Miss Michelle shares her book recommendations each month on the In Our Homeschool blog. Find links to all of her posts here.

Miss Michelle is the sister of Kristen, who writes this blog. She has a daughter who is 9 and a son who is 4. They are not home-schooled, but Miss Michelle is super supportive and proud of her sister for doing it. She has been a full-time Children’s Librarian for over 15 years and loves to recommend her favorite books. You can follow her on Goodreads, where she keeps track of books she has read for storytime, at https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/170007385-miss-michelle.