JUST BE YOU

An approachable guide for building social-emotional growth and mindfulness skills in kids and young teens.

Broken into four parts—“Who Am I?”; “What Do I Want?”; “How Can I Serve?”; and “What Am I Grateful For?”—this book offers tools for youth to better understand themselves and to put themselves in charge of what kind of people they want to be. Each section provides an accessible variety of centering activities that require minimal time and supplies, such as breathing exercises, connecting with one’s name, learning about religions, dream journaling, setting intentions, and discovering what brings them joy, to name a few. Each activity comes with guidelines on “time needed” and “location” to perform it along with necessary materials, if any; many are delightfully open-ended: “As long as you want, and over and over again!” Noteworthy in its inclusive approach, this recognizes a variety of experiences and how one’s life is influenced by family, race, religion, nationality, and socio-economic status as well as if the reader is a person with a disability and/or is transgender, homeless, or in foster care. In a section on dealing with disappointment, it acknowledges systemic racism and inequity. Full-page illustrations in cool and calming tones depict peaceful-looking children demonstrating the activities, consciously presenting a racial-, cultural-, and ability-diverse range of youth.

Empowers readers to decide who they want to become and gives them tools for figuring that out.