My Top 15 Book Choices on Growth Mindset

Image retrieved from Big Life Journal

Well here it is! My original list of over 80 titles whittled down to the 15 best sources to teach Growth Mindset to Elementary School children, especially primary students. Within this list you will find both fiction and non-fiction picture books, as well as juvenile fiction novels for Read Aloud purposes. In addition, at the end you will find links to a few websites and videos for your viewing pleasure or to supplement your lessons if need be. Included within this post is my rationale, criteria, and analysis of these titles that I chose to be a part of this list. Enjoy!

Fiction Picture Books

           Pett, M. (2011). The Girl who Never made Mistakes. Sourcebooks Jabberwocky.

      This book is about a girl who is perfect, she has never made a mistake. Until one day things don't go as smoothly as usual and she makes her first mistake. The unneeded pressure to be perfect is a lesson to be learned from this wonderful book. By understanding that making mistakes is okay will help with the development of your growth mindset.

      Yamada, K. (2016). What Do You Do with a Problem? Compendium Inc.

     

      This story is about a boy with a persistent problem and how he finds the courage to face his problem instead of avoiding it. While doing so, he finds out it is quite different than what he expected. A great book to help with problem solving and understanding that you can do anything if you put your mind to it. Instead of saying "I can't" try saying "I will". 

      Rosenthal, A. K. (2007). The OK book. New York: Harper Collins Publishers.

     

      This book is about how being 'ok' at various activities is actually quite good and that eventually after trying many different things, you will find something you are really great at. This book ties into the "Power of Yet" concept of growth mindset in that you may not be great at something yet, you may be just okay, but with lots of practice and courage, you can succeed. 

Saltzberg, B. (2010). Beautiful Oops. Workman Publishing Company.

    

      This book teaches us that it's okay to make a mistake and in fact those mistakes can turn into something beautiful, creative, or new. By avoiding the fixed mindset and instead of getting upset by a problem, accident, or spill, look at the situation differently and see how you can make it better. A nice book to remind students about the power of having a Growth Mindset and the creativity it can inspire.

   

Spires, A. (2014). The Most Magnificent Thing. Kids Can Press.

This book is about a girl who wants to make the most magnificent thing. Along the way she realizes it is not an easy task and she tries and fails repeatedly. She quits but in the end returns to her creation and gets it just try. A wonderful story about perseverance and never giving up! It reminds the reader that you may not be able to do something "yet" but if you keep at it, you will find out that you can.

Non-fiction Picture Books

Deak, J. M. (2010) Your Fantastic Elastic Brain. San
Francisco, California: Little Pickle Press Inc.

This book introduces readers to the anatomy and functions of
the brain, while at the same time showing them that trying
new things is important and making mistakes is okay.
A great introductory book for the Growth Mindset concept.

       

      Gray, K. (2016). Nadia: The Girl who Couldn’t Sit Still. New
York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. 

      This true story is about a girl from Romania who made history at
the 1976 Olympic Games where she received seven
perfect scores in gymnastics. Yet her journey to get there
had imperfect moments along the way but she never gave up and
her hard work and determination helped in her success. A good story
to remind students of the dedication and growth mindset qualities
many professional athletes have that make them successful.

     Berne, J. (2013). On a Beam of Light: A Story of Albert
Einstein. San Francisco, California: Chronicle Books.

      This is a true story about a boy who struggled as a young child
but grew up to be one of the smartest people with a brilliant
mind and powerful imagination. His life story shows the
importance of believing in yourself and your ideas, as you never
know what scientific discovery you might find. Even the smartest
of us have struggled along the way, but our mindset is a powerful
tool to overcome any obstacle.

     

      Lee, S. (2011). Giant Steps to Change the World. Simon &
Schuster Books for Young Readers. 

This inspirational picture book is about believing in yourself
and taking steps to help yourself and others. It chronicles the
steps others have done to help the world throughout history
and urges children to do the same. It may not be easy but even
a little step can go a long way. A wonderful story that reminds
children that they are enough, that their qualities and abilities
are important, but that they can always improve. Ultimately,
it's up to them to choose to do something positive for themselves and others.

      Bridges, S. Y. (2002). Ruby’s Wish. San Francisco, California:
Chronicle Books.  

      This true story is about a girl who wanted to attend university
in a time when girls were not allowed to in China. With her hard
work and courage, she is allowed to attend university with her
grandfather's support. A lesson in how to never give up on your
dreams and how challenges can make you stronger.

      Jordan, R. (2000). Salt in his Shoes. New York: Aladdin Paperbacks.

      This true story about Michael Jordan is about his early days of learning
to play basketball and how his patience, hard work, practice, and
determination were keys to his success as a basketball star. Another story
that reminds students about how you can get stronger when it's difficult by
working hard to get better and by having a growth mindset. 

Juvenile Fiction Books

Palacio, R. J. (2012). Wonder. New York: Random House Children's Books.
(also a picture book available called We're All Wonders) 

This is an inspiring story about a boy with facial deformities and how he learns to believe in himself and how others begin to accept his differences. A book that teaches empathy and to work through life's challenges with confidence. Auggie could have quit school when it was too hard, but he didn't. He persevered and believed in himself. A true growth mindset champion! 

DiCamillo, K. (2006). The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Candlewick Press.

This story is about an arrogant rabbit who gets lost from his owner, a ten year old girl. Through his journey after being lost, he experiences new emotions such as fear, love, and gratefulness, and teaches us all about universal yearnings and determination. If Edward had a fixed mindset, he would have stayed arrogant at the bottom of the ocean. His ability to see the positive, face his challenges, and learn from others displays his mentality shift and development of a growth mindset.

 Hunt, L. M. (2015). Fish in a Tree. New York: Puffin Books.

This story is about a girl who believes she is not smart because she cannot read. She is afraid to ask for help but a new teacher shows her that she has nothing to be ashamed of and that everyone is smart in different ways. A story about believing in yourself and overcoming challenges. She was able to grow her brain by learning new things and makes progress from each mistake. She demonstrated grit by standing back up again and again and working hard, which led to her success and strength at the end of the story. 

Videos

Andreae, G. (2002). Giraffes Can’t Dance DVD. New York: Orchard Books.     

Gerald the giraffe can't dance until he gets some wise advice from a cricket who suggests finding his own song to dance to. Once he realizes he just needed to find his own tune, he really is quite good at dancing. A story about embracing our differences and not giving up. A reminder that when you work hard and embrace your uniqueness, you can get better. Also a lesson about knowing that you can always improve with the right help or guidance.

      Additional Websites/Videos to supplement lessons

Class dojo: free website with 5 videos and discussion questions on Growth Mindset
   Growth Mindset Class Dojo

Inspirational video: Famous Failures

Introduction to Growth Mindset: GM animation watch video below

Rationale and Analysis

For this Assignment I started with asking the question:

How can I incorporate Growth Mindset using children’s literature as my intro or hook to discussions and writing responses?

This past year, I tried to incorporate the core competencies, but more specifically topics of growth mindset, weekly in my Grade 2 classroom. I had some successes and failures and found it challenging for the students to be self-reflective at times. However, I did find success when I used a picture book or video to hook my students into the topic of the week such as perseverance, the power of yet, hard-work, and practice. Unfortunately, I was not very good at keeping track of all the wonderful resources I discovered throughout the school year and needed to find a better way to make note of the great literature on this topic. This assignment seemed like the perfect way to start a curation list.

Last year, the first Growth Mindset book I used was probably The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes (Pett, 2011). From there I began to search social media sites and asked our Teacher-Librarian of books she could recommend. I used a couple more such as What Do You Do With a Problem? (Yamada, 2016) and Stuck (Jeffers, 2011) but I honestly couldn’t remember many more before I began this assignment. I often feel frustrated when I can’t remember what books I have used in the past and so this year I began writing book titles on sticky notes to put in my files. However, I have recently discovered a wonderful feature on Destiny Follett Library systems where I can create my own Resource Lists based on the books available in my school’s library or even search the entire district. I love this feature as I can now print this list off and go pull books that I need for each unit of study or provide this list to my librarian to help me. I would love to show the other primary teachers this Resource List feature as well, as I find it to be a good reminder of both fiction and non-fiction titles that we have available in our school library on various topics. Once I discovered this, I went into a research frenzy looking within our school district at what books appeared for Growth Mindset. The Vancouver School District has only recently begun using the Destiny Follett system so there are not very many district resource lists produced. There are no Growth Mindset lists so I will be publishing my list publicly to the district site once I am all finished. I also searched other School District’s sites and found some great Growth Mindset titles included in their lists. I viewed the titles we have available at my school and got some more books out from the Vancouver Public Library that our district has, but not at the Elementary School I work at. The titles that we do not have, I will suggest to our Teacher-Librarian to purchase. I have also learned that searching book lists and review sites by children’s book experts is helpful but until you actually read the story for yourself, you won’t know if it is the right fit for your lessons and classroom.

For this assignment, my curation list for Growth Mindset books started with the same book The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes by Mark Pett. I decided to start with that same book for this assignment as that is the one that stood out to me from my teaching this past year. Then over the course of a few days my list grew to over 80 titles. It was challenging to narrow it down to a smaller list. I got my list down to 32 titles, but had to cut it even further to reach my top 15 picks. A few of my criteria for selection was the resource had to discuss a growth mindset topic, be literary, had to have a newer publication date, be visually appealing and engaging, have a balance between male/female main characters, and displayed characters of various ethnicities. I wanted to have a variety of growth mindset resources that were multicultural and with a balance of genders for the main characters. I have noticed there seems to be more books with a female protagonist lately so I made a conscious effort to balance my selection of books.

I was inspired to design my curation list from the blog "There's a Book for That" by Carrie Gelson. I liked how she included a picture of the books with a brief description for each of her various book lists. Since I already had a blog, I thought it would be fitting to include my list of "Top 15 Growth Mindset Books" on a blog as well. In this way, anyone can benefit from my list, not just the teachers in my district (which is the limiting factor of the Destiny Follett Resource lists).

Reading the article by Thein, Beach, and Fink (2013), I was in agreement with them when they mentioned "teachers quickly recognize that text selection is not as simple as drawing from one universal list or a single “canon” of literary texts" (p. 10). Literary recognition programs such as the Newbery or Caldecott Medal hold a lot of merit with teachers and curriculum designers. However, it is good to keep in mind that although "those awards certainly recognize many high-quality books, those who select the winners are not without particular biases or agendas"(Thein et al., 2013, p.11). When creating this curation list of Growth Mindset books, I kept this idea in mind and tried to avoid biases and books that perpetuated stereotypes. I also did not rely on one review list and rather looked to many lists as well as read all of the books myself.  

A book is considered literary when it inspires empathy, contains multiple levels of meaning, creates a new perspective or expression, and uses characters and plot to discuss important ideas (Module 5). I believe that all the Growth Mindset books I have chosen fit this criteria. In addition, the visual appeal of books is an important consideration. The "technological advances and societal immersion in visual culture have opened book design to greater experimentation and innovation by illustrators and art directors. Due to their own immersion in visual culture, children delight in this greater variety of design structures, especially the increased use of interactive features" (Short, 2018, p.292). The book Beautiful Oops is one such book. When you open this book, you can interact with it in ways unlike most traditional books. There are cut outs and extendable pages and the creativity it inspires in the reader through its visual appeal is quite amazing. 

I feel that this list of 15 resources is quite diverse in its character portrayals, cultural settings, and type of resource format as it includes both fictional stories and non-fiction biographies. Including some more advanced novels for Read Aloud and videos for different engagement was also important to me when creating this list. I hope it serves you and your teaching needs well and by no means is this a "be-all-end-all" list on this topic. It is merely a starting point to get your teaching of this important topic of Growth Mindset underway! Enjoy!

References

Class dojo. Growth Mindset. Class Twist Inc. Retrieved from https://ideas.classdojo.com/b/growth-mindset

Gelson, C. "Must Read Read-Alouds for 6 to 10 Year Olds." There's a Book for That, Wordpress,
     March 24, 2011. Retrieved from https://thereisabookforthat.com/

Lisney, C. (September 28, 2014). [Youtube] Growth Mindset Animation. Retrieved from
     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_oqghnxBmY

Motivating Success. (May 15, 2012). [Youtube] Famous Failures. Retrieved from
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLYECIjmnQs

Short, K. (2018). "What's Trending in Children's Literature and Why it
Matters." Language Arts, 95(5), 287-298.

Thein, A. H., Beach, R., & Fink, L. (2013). Critiquing and constructing canons in middle grade
     english language arts classrooms. Voices from the Middle, 21(1), 10.