Description
Review
"Each piece is truly inspiring, whether because of the identified need (climate change awareness, suicide prevention, grief mitigation, menstrual acceptance), the innovator (high school and college students, friends, neighbors, siblings, roommates), or the ability to recreate these initiatives in other communities. Lady Gaga's online persona is huge, and her fans―Little Monsters―are ubiquitous, so expect lots of interest."―Booklist
Product Description
A New York Times Bestseller
For Lady Gaga, kindness is the driving force behind everything she says and does.
The quiet power of kindness can change the way we view one another, our communities, and even ourselves. She embodies this mission, and through her work, brings more kindness into our world every single day.
Lady Gaga has always believed in the importance of being yourself, being kind to yourself, and being kind to others, no matter who they are or where they come from. With that sentiment in mind, she and her mother, Cynthia Germanotta, founded Born This Way Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to making the world a kinder and braver place. Through the years, they've collected stories of kindness, bravery and resilience from young people all over the world, proving that kindness truly is the universal language. And now, we invite you to read these stories and follow along as each and every young author finds their voice just as Lady Gaga has found hers.
Within these pages, you’ll meet young changemakers who found their inner strength, who prevailed in the face of bullies, who started their own social movements, who decided to break through the mental health stigma and share how they felt, who created safe spaces for LGBTQ+ youth, and who have embraced kindness with every fiber of their being by helping others without the expectation of anything in return.
In one story, you’ll read about a young person with an autoimmune disease, who after being bullied at school, learned how to practice self-love and started an organization with the mission of educating others about the importance of self-love, too; and in another story, you’ll meet a young person who decided to start a movement to help eliminate the stigma surrounding mental health and encouraged others to talk about their feelings openly and honestly, a reminder that kindness and mental wellness go hand in hand.
Not only were we moved by these individual acts of kindness, but we were also touched by the many stories of organizations, neighborhoods, and entire communities that fully dedicated themselves to helping those in need and found new, innovative ways to make our world a kinder and braver place.
Individually and collectively, these stories prove that kindness not only saves lives but builds community. Kindness is inclusion, it is pride, it is empathy, it is compassion, it is self-respect and it is the guiding light to love. Kindness is always transformational, and its never-ending ripples result in even more kind acts that can change our lives, our communities, and our world.
From School Library Journal
Gr 6 Up-Kindness is celebrated and explored in this fantastic anthology curated by Lady Gaga and her Born This Way Foundation team of reporters. Stories by and for young adults highlight inspirational, heartbreaking, and ultimately hopeful moments that led to personal and communal transformation. Each narrative depicts the power of an individual and what happened when they took a stand and chose kindness. Every story also features empowering messages from Lady Gaga. The entertainer's own story, "The Value of Negative Space," sets a positive, empathetic tone, which is the common thread throughout the entire book. Back matter includes a solid list of resources and a blank page that encourages readers to write their own stories of kindness and change. VERDICT A stirring collection that strongly makes the case for kindness as a formidable way to transform the world for the better. Perfect