If you’re wondering how to keep your child busy and productive during the summer, why not introduce them to the wonderful world of storytelling?

Here are some book recommendations for children aged 6-10 years:

Amanda Gulliver’s No Difference Between Us uses colourful imagery to explain gender equality and respectful relationships, as well as feelings, choice, self-esteem, empathy, tolerance and acceptance.  

Ney Kid by Jerry Kraft addresses microaggressions and cross-racial relationships through the lens of 12-year-old Jordan Banks, an African American child who starts going to a new school.

The author combines a traditional coming of age story with Jordan’s struggle to fit in in a school where diversity is low.

Let’s Talk about Body Boundaries, Consent and Respect by Sarah Jennings Jayneen Sanders delves into body boundaries, having the right to personal space, and personal agency.

Stories for Boys Who Dare to be Different by Ben Brooks narrates the stories of 100 famous men over the course of history who achieved different feats in life without necessarily conforming to stereotypical notions of masculinity.

The idea of the book is to show that “masculinity” can mean anything that boys want them to mean. It includes stories of Barack Obama, Frank Ocean, Salvador Dali, Beethoven, and several more.

Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls by Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo offers an alternative to stereotypical portrayals of young girls in fiction and features 100 women immigrants who have transformed the world through music, science, feminism, politics, and so on.

The book includes the stories of women like Asma Khan, Madeleine Albright, Rihanna, Lupita Nyong’o, Samantha Power, and so on.

The story of Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi is an autobiographical memoir written by the UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and delves into the values of unconventional education, which the author received against the backdrop of World War II.

Narrated through the eyes of Gopi the dog, Sudha Murty’s The Gopi Diaries is a series of three books that capture how a dog sees the world as he enters a new home, settles in, and interacts with the humans around him.

It would be remiss to talk about dog protagonists and not mention the Dog Man series by Dav Pikley. These books explore themes of empathy, kindness, and persistence through the stories of a crime fighting part dog, part man.

Ruskin Bond’s Great Stories for Children is a classic collection that features fun, lighthearted, and thrilling tales alike of new worlds, interesting creatures, and in one chapter, even Bond himself.

The Ramona series by Beverly Cleary captures the misadventures of young Ramona Quimby, and tells the story of a girl who has “not been subdued by adults or the world in general”, and portrays the complexities of children through a realistic lens of their growing years.