Books like A Good Day: A Masterful Story About Emotions, Opposites, and Transformation
By Kevin Henkes
For the kid whose whole mood can flip over one dropped snack or one tangled shoelace, this book says: bad moments pass, and good ones follow. Gentle, quiet, and reassuring, with a soft emotional arc from frustration to relief.
Enslaved people in 19th-century Louisiana count down the days through endless labor — slopping hogs, chopping logs, plucking hens — toward Sunday afternoon, when they gather in New Orleans' Congo Square to sing, dance, and briefly live free.
A true portrait of an enslaved man in 1800s South Carolina who became a master potter, shaping massive clay jars and carving his own poetry into them despite the world telling him he had no voice.
A duckling too odd-looking for his own barnyard is mocked and driven off, then must survive hunters and harsh seasons alone before discovering what he truly is.
An egg named Humpty Dumpty loves nothing more than watching birds from high on the city wall — until a great fall leaves him terrified of heights, and he must find the courage to climb again.
A little girl adores her shiny yellow rain boots until the day she discovers her feet have grown too big to fit inside them anymore.
A boy who loves telling stories struggles with messy handwriting and spelling mistakes, and starts to believe his stories were never meant to be written down at all.
A three-legged kitten named Fanny and her puppy friend Ruby set out to show the other farm animals that being different doesn't mean being less able.
A kitten spots the full moon and mistakes it for a bowl of milk, then sets off on a quest to reach it — a night that leaves her tired, wet, and hungry.
A child piano prodigy flees revolution in Venezuela for the United States, and despite feeling lonely and out of place, grows famous enough to be invited to play for President Lincoln at the White House.
A wave sweeps ten rubber ducks off a cargo ship, scattering them across the sea to meet a dolphin, a whale, and other creatures, while the last little duck drifts alone until nightfall.
A lyrical, free-verse journey traces enslaved Black Americans' path to freedom, from the moment shackles fell in 1865 Galveston, Texas to how Juneteenth is honored today.
A Black child moves through a year of feelings, from summertime joy on his skateboard to the fear, anger, grief, and eventual peace that follow a police shooting in his community.
