Valentine's Day Reads to Warm the Heart

I LOVE Valentine's Day.  And no, not because it's so romantic--I love that Valentine's Day is an excuse to celebrate ALL kinds of love.  Love for friends, family, coworkers, students, anyone you're glad is in your life.  (The excuse to wear pink and eat chocolate?  Also not too shabby.)  If you want to share the warm fuzzies with your students--or if you want another chance to feel them yourself--here are five excellent books that celebrate love in all its forms.

1. Plant a Kiss by Amy Krause Rosenthal and Peter H. Reynolds
This is such a cute, simple book about what happens when "Little Miss planted a kiss."  The kiss grows and grows and starts things she never could have imagined.  One of my favorite Valentine's Day activities is to give every student a paper heart after reading and have them write down one kind thing someone else has done for them, and use those hearts to decorate the classroom. 

2. Hug Machine by Scott Campbell
Watch out, the Hug Machine is coming!  He'll hug everything and everyone, and no one can resist his hugs!  Parents, friends, mailboxes, benches--everyone deserves a hug, and our main character is making sure they get one.

3. Love, Z by Jessie Sima
I adore Jessie Sima's touching, original stories and artwork, and this book is no different.  When Z, a young robot, finds a message in a bottle signed, "Love, Beatrice," he wants to know what love is.  But when no one can give him a proper answer, he sets sail to try to find an answer, and to try to meet Beatrice.  And he may just learn that love was easier to understand than he thought.

4. My Heart is Like a Zoo by Michael Hall
Michael Hall uses hearts to construct every animal seen on the pages of this book from lions to beavers to herons.  The text is simple and helps convey the idea that hearts can feel like many, many things.  Kids will have fun spotting all the hearts in the illustrations!

5. I'll Love You Till the Cows Come Home by Kathryn Cristaldi and Kristyna Litten
Reminiscent of Guess How Much I Love You, this is all about the love a parent feels for a child, and it's sweet, silly prose and adorable illustrations have something everyone will love.  How can you not love a book that includes, "I'll love you till the cows come home / from a trip to Mars through skies unknown / in a rocket ship made of glass and stone"?