Animal Related Guidance: Teaching Social Skills Using Pets or Puppets, Grades 2-5. Patty Stang-Erickson & Val Rae Boe, $24.95

Animal assisted guidance and therapy has been shown to increase empathy for others, act as a catalyst for expressing emotions, enhancing self-esteem, improving self-control, expanding social competence, decreasing feelings of stress and social isolation. With over 100 lessons, activities and worksheets, this book will help you bring an animal loving slant into your guidance coaching.

Black Ants and Buddhists: Thinking Critically and Teaching Differently in the Primary Grades. Mary Cowhey, $26.95

What would a classroom look like if understanding and respecting differences in race, culture, beliefs, and opinions were at its heart? Welcome to Mary Cowhey's Peace Class in Northampton, MA, where first and second graders view the entire curriculum through the framework of understanding the world, and trying to do their part to make it a better place.

Woven through the book is Mary's unflinching and humorous account of her own roots in a struggling large Irish Catholic family and her early career as a community activist. Mary's teaching is infused with lessons of her heroes: Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt, Helen Keller, Martin Luther King, and others. Her students learn to make connections between their lives, the books they read, the community leaders they meet, and the larger world.

BLACK ANTS AND BUDDHISTS will make you think hard about how you spend your time with students. It offers no easy answers, just wealth of insight into the challenges of helping students think critically about the world.

The Complete Guide to Service Learning, Grades K-12.  Cathryn Berger Kaye, $47.99

Proven, practical ways to engage students in civic responsibility, academic curriculum and social action.

Counseling Toward Solutions: a Practical Solution-Focused Program for Working with Students, Teachers and Parents, 2nd Edition. Linda Metcalf, $35.99 Grades K-12

Step by step, COUNSELING TOWARD SOLUTIONS shows how to help individual students begin their own change process by noticing when a problem does not occur rather than focusing on problems or what caused them. This revised and updated second edition presents a positive program for changing individual behavior that empowers students of all ages to deal with their won problems and gain self-esteem in the process.

New: The Field Guide to Counseling Toward Solutions: the Solution-Focused School. Linda Metcalf, $26.99 Grades K-12

Creating Emotionally Literate Classrooms: an Introduction to the RULER Approach to Social and Emotional Learning. Edited by Marcia Brackett & Janet Pickard Kremenitzer, $26.50

Written by researchers and educators, and using the RULER approach: Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing and Regulating, this book documents the importance of emotionally literate teachers and provides practical advice for the implementation of a researched emotional literacy program for upper elementary students. It reinforces the positive relationship between emotional literacy and effective teaching, successful academic performance and quality relationships.

Desperately Seeking Solutions: Helping students build problem-solving skills to meet life's many challenges.  Kathy Paterson, $24.95

This practical book discusses the specific critical and creative thinking skills that go into confronting life`s inevitable dilemmas, including those frequently faced at school. Organized for easy classroom use, the book introduces a five-step plan for handling almost any situation — from defining the problem, through considering possibilities and choosing the best option, to taking action and evaluating decisions. Concrete examples throughout the book offer simple suggestions for talking with students about problem-solving, modeling strategies, and reinforcing effective problem-solving techniques.

The Educator’s Guide to Emotional Intelligence and Academic Achievement: Social-Emotional Learning in the Classroom. Maurice Elias & Harriet Arnold, editors. $46.95

This comprehensive guide to emotional intelligence (EI) is a state-of-the-art collection of proven best practices from the field’s best and brightest minds … this guide creates a new gold standard for bringing social-emotional learning into every classroom … Key features cover:

• Theory and context for EI, including brain development, multiple intelligences, service and citizenship, school-to-work, and health
• Teacher preparation and professional development
• 17 best-practice programs in action, relevant to grades PreK-12
• An Application/Reflection Guide for note-taking, follow-up, contacts, and ideas for immediate implementation

Helping Students Fix Problems and Avoid Crises: an Easy-to-Use Intervention Resource for Grades 1-4. Lawrence J. Greene, $49.95

For every teacher who has been at a loss to help the student who seemed helpless, this is a resource that cannot be missed. In HELPING STUDENTS FIX PROBLEMS AND AVOID CRISES, Lawrence Greene details instructional principles to help educators model and mentor effective life skills behaviors for their students. For the child who doesn’t have friends, does poorly in sports, has difficulty learning, or who steals, lies, or bullies, Greene provides solid, proven methods to help these learners discover and practice better life skills.

The Milestones Project: Celebrating Childhood around the World. Photography by Richard Steckel & Michele Steckel, $15.99 (Includes essays by J.K. Rowling, Cynthia Rylant, Eric Carle, and more)

A best friend. A lost tooth. A first day of school. In engaging photos and text, this book highlights the milestones shared by children everywhere.

In addition to original writings from some of today's best-known children's authors and illustrators THE MILESTONES PROJECT comes packaged with a growth chart uniquely designed to track a child's physical growth as well as their development into an ethical human being. Stickers included with the book can be placed on the chart to encourage children toward their goals: "I told the truth." "I kept a promise." "I shared my toys."

Outrageous Behavior Modification, 2nd Edition. Barry Christian, $49.95

Developed by eccentric school psychology practitioners, this outrageous text introduces such methods as planned confusion, disruptive word pictures, unconscious suggestion, double-bind predictions, off-the-wall interpretations, and even some straight-face paradoxical assignments. It’s perfect for educators who have had enough behavior management theory but not enough success in managing difficult students. Many of the methods presented are powerfully hypnotic and strategic in nature and are intended to effectively neutralize student resistance at a deeper personality level.

Not intended for average kids who may be having a bad day, these methods were developed specifically for those hard core ‘you can’t make me’ students. In fact, the OBM has been described as “programmatic judo” that actually uses student resistance to fuel compliance. To help introduce the teacher to OBM practice, this book is filled with step-by-step protocols, scripts, coupons, behavior permits, stimulus cards, and wacky assignments for oppositional students.

Promoting Emotional Education: Engaging Children and Young People with Social, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties. Edited by Carmel Cafai & Paul Cooper, $41.95

PROMOTING EMOTIONAL EDUCATION connects with the contemporary shift from an exclusively academic focus towards a more balanced and broader approach to education, with an emphasis on both academic and emotional literacy.

The book suggests adopting educational practices which encourage feelings of emotional security, promote trusting and supportive relationships and reflect students' views and feelings. The contributors emphasize evidence-based practice, proposing various strategies which have proven to be effective in improving the social and academic behaviour of children and young people with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.

Promoting Resilience in the Classroom: a Guide to Developing Pupils’ Emotional and Cognitive Skills. Carmel Cefai, $24.95

Resilience is a set of qualities that enable children to adapt and transform, to overcome risk and adversity, and to develop social competence, problem-solving skills, autonomy and a sense of purpose. For children and young people it is as vital to possess these qualities in school environments as in the family and the community at large. This handbook for teachers and educators explores ways of nurturing resilience in vulnerable students. It proposes a new, positive way of thinking about schools as institutions that can foster cognitive and socio-emotional competence in all students.

Roots of Empathy: Changing the World Child by Child. Mary Gordon, $19.95

Mary Gordon, an educator who has worked for more than two decades with children from all kinds of backgrounds, believes that the solution to bullying and other anti-social behaviour lies within each child's innate sense of caring and compassion. She believes that infusing children with empathy constitutes nothing less than a new paradigm in our approach to child-raising.

Through Roots of Empathy, her highly successful organization, Mary Gordon creates a rich, rewarding classroom experience that fosters empathy within children. The program brings babies and students together in a symbiotic loving environment that has been proven to reduce aggression and increase tolerance and emotional understanding in children. To date, Roots of Empathy has reached 325,000 children worldwide.

In ROOTS OF EMPATHY: CHANGING THE WORLD CHILD BY CHILD the innovative and inspired book based on her groundbreaking research and successful classroom program, Mary Gordon shares her vision of a nation of compassionate and caring children who will pass on their legacy of empathy to their own children.

All of the royalties from this book go back into the Roots of Empathy program.

Seven Skills for School Success: Activities to Develop Social & Emotional Intelligence in Young Children. Pam Schiller, $20.95

Before learning their ABCs or their numbers, children need to develop their social intelligence and emotional intelligence as the essential building blocks for all future learning.

Pam Schiller provides information, activities, and experiences that develop the seven skills children need in order to become successful learners. These include the ability to relate to and play with others, express feelings, and understand how others feel.

Tackling Controversial Issues in the Primary School: Facing Life’s Challenges with Your Learners.  Richard Woolley, $41.95

Talking effectively about controversial issues with young children is a challenge facing every primary school teacher. TACKLING CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES provides teachers with support and guidance as you engage with the more tricky questions and topics you and your pupils encounter.

Illuminated with case studies and examples of how teachers and children have confronted issues together, this book helps you understand your own perspectives and provides fresh approaches for the primary classroom. It considers how best to work with parents, whole-school policies for tackling issues, and ideas for circle time, setting up international links, school councils and buddy systems. TACKLING CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES provides much needed support as you help your learners face complicated ideas, find their voice and get involved in the issues that they feel make a difference.

Teaching the 3 Cs: Creativity, Curiosity and Courtesy. Patricia Dischler, $49.95

The development of affective skills can make a critical difference in a child’s future yet the emphasis for many parents and educators is on early exposure to academic content. TEACHING THE THREE Cs bridges this gap and demonstrates how incorporating creativity, curiosity and courtesy into classroom instruction can support the development of lifelong learning.

Teaching Tough Kids: Simple and Proven Strategies for Student Success. Mark le Messurier, $47.50

TEACHING TOUGH KIDS delivers a refreshing collection of realistic ideas to sustain the organizational and behavioural transformations of all students, particularly those who 'do it tough'; who learn and react differently. They are complex kids who find life tougher than most.

TEACHING TOUGH KIDS pays particularly close focus on students identified with executive functioning difficulties including Learning Disabilities, ADD/ADHD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Asperger Syndrome. ‘Tough Kids’ may also be those students who have endured neglect or too much stress and uncertainty in their lives and as a result display classic symptoms of hyperactivity, hyper vigilance and impulsivity.

The book focuses on building improved relationships, structures and behaviours, rather than seeing the student as a problem that must be fixed. Highlighting the value of promoting positive connections, the author presents ways to incorporate inclusive ideas into everyday practice and construct pathways for students to become engaged in their learning and achieve success.

The Well-Managed Classroom: Strategies to Create a Productive and Cooperative Social Climate in Your Learning Community, 2nd Edition. Michele Hensley, Walter Powell, Susan Lamke & Scott Hartman, $29.95

How can the school experience be humanized so that students feel connected, valued, and motivated to learn and achieve? How can the school environment be improved so that teachers and staff feel confident, respected and safe? THE WELL-MANAGED CLASSROOM can show you how to overhaul or enhance the social climate and build a true "community" in your school. The authors describe the Girls and Boys Town Education Model, a school-based intervention strategy that emphasizes behavior management practices, relationship-building techniques, and social skills instruction. It offers you the structure and strategies needed to reduce disruptive behaviors and empower students with self-management skills.

What to Do with the Kid Who ... Developing Cooperation, Self Discipline and Responsibility in the Classroom, 3rd Edition. Kay Burke, $58.75

Kay Burke offers proven disciplinary ideas and strategies for the diverse classroom. This revised edition provides the foundation teachers need to help students take responsibility for their own behavior, resolve their own conflicts and celebrate their own learning.

Whole Child Education. John Miller, $22.95

Public education is often viewed as dominated by an emphasis on test scores and narrowly defined parameters of performance and achievement. By contrast, John Miller's WHOLE CHILD EDUCATION fosters relationships between various forms of thinking, links body and mind, and recognizes the inner life of the child.

Addressing issues of teaching, curriculum, the school, and teacher wellness, Miller presents three basic approaches (transmission, transaction, and transformation) that facilitate a connection with the whole student. Practical examples from teachers who have incorporated Miller's ideas into their own classrooms and descriptions of Toronto's Whole Child School (founded in 2009) illustrate how the 'Whole Curriculum' can be implemented on both the small and large scale. Inspired by the powerful vision of Martin Luther King and his concept of the Beloved Community, WHOLE CHILD EDUCATION is a vehicle for building community through holistic education.