Kindness Is Cooler, Mrs. Ruler

by Margery Cuyler, Sachiko Yoshikawa (Illustrator)

When Mrs. Ruler asks five of her kindergarteners to miss recess, she's got a special plan up her sleeve. She's about to teach a new golden rule:

KINDNESS IS COOL

Soon the entire class is doing so many good deeds that their kindness bulletin board barely fits their classroom

From clearing the table after dinner, to helping the elderly, one kindergarten class is proving that kids really can make a difference.

Count along with Mrs. Ruler's class. Can all their good deeds really add up to 100 acts of kindness?

Acclaimed picture book author Margery Cuyler will inspire children of all ages to have a heart and save the world

Genres: Picture Books, School, Childrens, Fiction, 2nd Grade, Counting, Friendship

48 pages, Hardcover

First published June 26, 2007

About the author

Margery Cuyler is the author of many books for children, including From Here to There, The Little Dump Truck, and That’s Good! That’s Bad! The idea for That’s Good! That’s Bad! was inspired by a conversation with her son, Thomas, who asked, "Can't bad things change into good things?" Ms. Cuyler grew up in the oldest house in Princeton, NJ, and started writing stories as soon as she learned how to write. She now lives in the same house with her husband, sons and two cats.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/marger...

Reviews

[Fjóla · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book because of the concept, but I just couldn't like neither the text (which is sometimes partly in rhyme) nor the pictures. I'm typically okay with busy pictures, but these just weren't all that interesting and didn't always illustrate the text all that much. I did like the individual pictures of acts of kindness, at least some of them, but in general I didn't think the book was all that inspired.

[Nora Wagner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book deserves 5 stars! The genre for this novel is fiction in children's literature and it was very fitting to that genre. This could happen in real life and it gives the readers inspiration to make this happen in their lives. This book talks about a teacher named Mrs. Ruler and her class. Her class is learning one day then it becomes chaotic and a certain group of kids have to do good deeds to fix their actions. As the story goes on the whole class eventually gets involved and then the class learns the true value of doing good deeds for others. Even though the class is doing their good deeds, the story shows a great use of conflict when one of the students does not want to do his share of good deeds like the rest of the class. Lastly, the theme of the story is to treat others with kindness and to help others. The theme stays prevalent throughout the whole story and is enhanced even more through the illustrations. All in all, the book was a fun and exciting book to read and it gave me great insight on what I can do to motivate my classes in the future.

[Terea W · Rating 4 out of 5]

•Kindness is Cooler, Mrs. Ruler is a fiction book for children 5-8 years. Mrs. Ruler asks her kindergarteners to miss recess, so she can teach them a special lesson and a golden rule; kindness is cool. After Mrs. Ruler teaches her class the golden rule the entire class gets involved and does good dead’s and add them to the kindness bulletin board. I gave this book a 4-star because the illustrations are more relatable to students because the setting is in a classroom and its about a teacher teaching. Also, the plot of the book is interesting of a teacher teaching the “golden rule” being kindness and how its important to do good dead’s. I do believe this book should be read to students when enforcing rules in the beginning of school starting. I believe the golden rule should be a actual rule because kindness is needed everywhere not only in the classroom but that’s where it mainly starts for young children.

[Katherine Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kindness Is Cooler, Mrs. Ruler encourages students to show acts of kindness in different settings. When Mrs. Ruler's day does not go as planned, she begins teacher her class the importance of showing kindness. I enjoyed reading this realistic fiction text to my 2nd grade students. At the beginning of the year, I chose a variety of social/emotional relevant text to encourage students to show kindness. This text can be used in K-5 classrooms to model a think aloud, talk about social/emotional needs, and to talk about ways we can help in our community. This is a WOW book for me because I noticed the impact that it had on my students. After modeling this reading for my students, I noticed that they were showing acts of kindness to their peers in the classroom or on the playground. Some students could not wait to come to school to tell me about the acts of kindness they had showed to others in their life.

[Megan Hosinski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction
Grade Level: K-2
I really like this book. I think it is great how this book teaches about how even one act of kindness can make a big difference in someone's life. I like how this story takes place in a classroom. I think this setting makes it relatable to students. I also like how the story ends with the teacher telling the students that it is possible for them to do acts of kindness in their community outside of the classroom, and how they all make it to 100 acts of kindness. I think this book could be very inspirational for students to want to be kind to not only each other, but to others in their life and their community as well.

[W.A. Ashes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was more fun to read than I thought it would be when my niece handed it to me and asked, "Will you read this?" Kindness Is Cooler, Mrs. Ruler is about an elementary school classroom that is in need of some lessons in kindness. Their teacher challenges five of them to do some acts of kindness at home, then the lesson turns into a classroom project. Each day they add more kindness hearts to their wall, trying to hit their goal of 100 kind acts.

One boy, David, is having a hard time coming up with ways to be kind. With the help of his classmates, he gets into the spirit. This is a great book to help kids understand how to be kind in both little and big ways.

[Sophonie Joseph-Canel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book to encourage act of kindness, geared for older children. Maybe 1st grades. I loved the rhyming part. i also liked the counting. But i do feel like this book is much too busy. its teaching kindness, counting, rhyming. The illustrations weren't the best. It was also busy! Still a very good conversation to have with children. It gives several ways and ideas to be kind. Something else that I didn't like was that the children got rewarded for kindness, and kept doing it just to get their hearts and praise.

[Stefanie Burns · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mrs Ruler encourages her class to complete acts of kindness. Students start by doing kind acts at home and telling their classmates about it the next day in Show and Tell. The students, most of them, realize it’s easy to do acts of kindness. They start doing nice things at school and then in the community. There’s a list of all the 200 acts of kindness committed at the end of the story.
Good to use to inspire kids to be kind and show how easy it can be. Can also use to talk about community involvement. Rhyming. A little long.

[Katherine Pace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book follows the class of Mrs. Ruler. There were kids acting up in class and being mean so she challenged those kids to do 5 acts of kindness and they liked it! The whole class eventually joined in and they did so many good deeds. I really liked this book because it talked about the importance of being kind and gave practical examples of things kids can do. I would read it to kids in my kindergarten or 1st grade class when talking about manners or being nice.

[Natalie Hills · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for books that encourage kindness! Love how this one shows kindness doesn't have to be a huge, expensive gesture! Getting the whole class involved and really encouraging the kids who don't think they are capable of adding kindness to the world were definitely my favorite parts! Best part of all was the list of the acts of kindness in the back of the book broken up into categories! Bravo, for spreading kindness!

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok so first off, the font is trash. It is small and it is so strange. I think it is intended to be "fun" but it's not inclusive in any form. I have zero vision problems and I even had to squint and bring the book closer to read some of the words.
It is also quite long for the PreK class that I read it with. And it was unnecessary to include the dumb rhymes and the counting. So it's like k let's count... ok co
The only good thing about this book is that it gives lots of good ideas for RAKs.

[Shamaa Farah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book to my brother yesterday. Its about the class doing acts of kindness for each other at school and for their family at home. Each student learns to challenge themselves of doing kind things for each other and it helps teach students the importance of sharing, helping each other, supporting one another, and speaking kid's words. I love how it allowed students to be competitive and strive for better in a positive way by uplifting each other.

[Rileigh Brooks]

This book is a great book that suggests so many ways for young children to be kind. I feel like kindness is very important for children to learn while they’re young and this book would be a great book to help them do just that.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a cute rhyming book with some thoughtful suggestions on kindness. Though if felt like the characters were in kindergarten or grade one, so it was too text heavy if that was its target audience.

[hanna ♡ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the concept, but felt a bit long for the target audience as they have quite short attention span’s. Looking forward to reading this for either do something nice day, or random act of kindness day.

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kindness Is Cooler, Mrs. Ruler (Hardcover)
by Margery Cuyler
When her class is overwhelming, Mrs. Ruler has a solution, she will teach them kindness. This one lesson shows how kindness can be acknowledged and counted.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

The kids enjoyed this one and helped us talk about little acts of kindness

[J · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great message but long winded, hard-to-read font, and wacky illustrations.

[Liz Todd · Rating 3 out of 5]

100 Acts of Kindness! Could be 100 day, Valentines day, or August class-wide project.

Note--kind of long for early Kinder.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mrs. Ruler assigns 4 kids to do 5 kind things at home. Then the whole class gets into the act. Fun rhymes makes for a great first day of school read aloud

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Acts of kindness spread and spread!

[Jen · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 1/2 stars. The story itself is pedantic and superficial. But it could be a way to introduce kids to the idea of doing acts of kindness, and it lists some ideas in the back.

[SB · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this story and especially enjoyed the illustrations. I like that the story takes place in the classroom and the kids can relate to that.

[Amy Maciejewski]

This is a great book about that teaches children kindness and how important it is to be kind.

[Susan Companion · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kindness is Cooler, Mrs. Ruler is a great picture book to show children all about kindness!! So many simple examples that children can understand.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ideas of kindness acts. Friendship. Acts of service.

[Ms. Jeane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was ok, but it was a little busy. Still the point of being kind and doing kind acts is really the most important this in here.

[Anna Chaddick]

This was a great book. It starts out with Ms. Ruler asking 5 kindergartners to miss recess because she had a special idea. She teaches these kids the about a new golden rule; kindness is cool. All the other kids in the classroom want to do these good deeds as well so they end up filling up a bulletin board of all their acts of kindness. This is an awesome book on teaching kids good values. This book is also interesting because Ms. Ruler always speaks in rhyme. Hopefully a book like this will make the kids excited to do the right thing.

[Shannon · Rating 1 out of 5]

A good concept delivered in a terrible manner. Mrs. Ruler's little rhymes annoyed me so much. Also, I'm not sure a kid would sit still for the whole book. It's a bit long and the pages are slightly text heavy, and there isn't much variation in the illustrations; the kids are in the classroom most of the time. All in all, disappointing.

[Kate Puleo Unger · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book to Christopher, and I liked the premise of the book. The teacher, Mrs. Ruler, is teaching her students about kindness. They're given homework to do something kind at home. It had more of a random acts of kindness type vibe to it. It was a lot of chore type activities that the kids did at home vs. actually just being kind to someone. That bothered Christopher a bit. But we still enjoyed reading it.

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