The idea of being gentle has come up a lot lately with my two-year-old grandson. He’s actually a pretty gentle little guy.

But even he has his moments. When we stayed at a rental recently with a pool table it was, “Be gentle, River, roll the balls like this.” We’d show him how to set his hand on top and give the hard ball a gentle push instead of picking it up and throwing it (sometimes on the floor). Be gentle with Humphrey (our doodle). Be gentle with Nana (that’s me). At a time when it seems far too many people are fighting, whether with weapons or words (and words can be weapons), gentleness can be a quiet, powerful force of good. Teach them young, and these kids will be different kinds of change makers. These books are some of the best examples of gentleness I could find, great for any age.

A Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka

In this wordless picture book a white dog named Daisy plays and sleeps with the red ball she loves. Her owner takes her on a walk and they play fetch with the beloved red ball in the park, but then a brown dog comes along, snatches the ball, and it pops. That can happen when you’re not gentle.

This is a great book to share with a kid who needs to learn to be more careful with other kid’s toys. Daisy is forlorn, head and tail down as her owner throws the withered ball in a trash can on their way home. Poor Daisy. There’s this spread where she’s alone on the couch, her owner gently loves on her, but life just isn’t as sweet, until . . . on their next visit to the park the brown dog is there bearing a brand new blue ball. Joy! When mistakes have been made, they can be redeemed. They play together, and eventually Daisy and her girl go home with the pretty new ball, which Daisy snuggles up to on the couch. Even the pacing feels gentle, and very sweet.

Grandma’s Cat by Helen Ketteman, illustrated by Marsha Lynn Winborn

My kids loved this simple, rhyming picture book about a girl who has to learn how to be gentle with her grandmother’s ornery cat if she wants to win his affection. I can recite it to this day,

Grandma’s cat

is round and fat.

He hides. I seek.

He scoots. I peek . . .

The young girl chases the cat, desperately wanting to cuddle. She doesn’t pick up on the signs, grabs the hissing cat’s tail, and gets a scratch on the nose. Kids can really relate to this one. Grandmother has sage advice, “just be very gentle and sweet to him, and he will like you.” And so the girl takes it slow, speaks gently, brings a treat, and is rewarded with the chance to pet and play and eventually sleep with Grandma’s cat, her new friend. Soft watercolors and a backyard world I’d love to visit make this a feast for the eyes and heart.

Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla by Katherine Applegate, illustrated by G. Brian Karas

Maybe you’re familiar with Katherine Applegate’s middle grade book The One and Only Ivan. In this picture book she brings Ivan’s sad, dramatic, inspiring, triumphant, resilient story to younger readers. The brilliant Brian Karas shows us Ivan in his mother’s arms on the first page as the text reads: In leafy calm, in gentle arms, a gorilla’s life began. I like how gorillas, so big and powerful, are shown as gentle. Ivan plays and learns with his troop until the day poachers come, definitely not gentle, and he’s captured along with another baby gorilla, who eventually dies. So, so sad. Ivan sits huddled alone on a mostly blank page. Karas is really brilliant at illustrating even the hardest moments with sensitivity. He is gentle with young readers (and old).

Ivan spends three years living in a home with humans, treated like just another little kid, until he gets too big. He is moved to a cage in the mall where he’s bored watching TV, playing with an old tire, finger painting and watching the humans that watch him. Finally, enough people get upset about his conditions that 27 years later, he’s sent to a new home at Zoo Atlanta with lots of green spaces and other gorillas. Yay! In leafy calm, in gentle arms, a gorilla’s life began again. Sigh.

The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, drawings by Robert Lawson

This is one of those oldies but goodies that should never go out of print. The drawings are all black and white and play with perspective in fun and quirky ways. All the other little bulls he lived with would run and jump and butt their heads together, but not Ferdinand. Ferdinand likes to sit quietly and smell the flowers. He’s a gentle bull, even after he grows big and strong.

One day out by the cork tree where Ferdinand likes to sit and smell flowers, he sits on a bee just as men are looking for the roughest bulls to bring to the bull fights in Madrid. When he gets stung Ferdinand snorts and puffs and paws the ground like he’s crazy, so he’s chosen for the fights. On the big day, all the ladies have flowers in their hair. (Remember that.) In comes the fighters with their sharp pins and spears and red cape. What will such a gentle bull do?

Ferdinand smells the flowers in the ladies’ hair, sits down and inhales, enjoying the beautiful scent. The fighters are mad and end up sending Ferdinand back home. This is an ode to gentleness, and defying expectation. Just because you’re a bull, or a two-year-old, doesn’t mean you can’t be gentle.

Boop by Bea Birdsong, illustrated by Linzie Hunter

There are stories about gentleness, and there are books that actually, physically, teach gentleness. Actually, there may be only one that teaches it. BOOP! A boop is a gentle pat. A gentle tap. Then the reader is instructed to get their finger ready and . . . page turn to a smiling dog with a big arrow pointing to his snoot (nose) with the word BOOP!

Readers gets to celebrate booping the snoots of all kinds of dogs in this super interactive picture book. Do you have a kid who boops that snoot so hard he knocks the book on the floor? Try again. Practice gentleness that builds to a boopiest-boop bonanza and then, at the end, there’s one more snoot that needs a boop! You’re own! I can’t think of a better way to teach doing unto others the way you’d have them do to you than this playful book of adorable dogs that leads the readers right back to their own little snoots to boop.

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