Ordinary Mary's Extraordinary Deed - A Children's Kindness Book Hardcover – Picture Book, April 29, 2002

This is a delightful book and encourages giving and demonstrates how one act of generosity can inspire others.

Loved how it shows how many people are affected in 16 days by a chain reaction. We loved the book for a mixture of ages of kids

My children (8 & 5) enjoyed this book greatly. They completely got the message about how one small good deed can make a huge difference. They thought it was very cool that the good deed went full circle and came back around to Mary. My older child appreciated the math at the end -- how many times would you multiply 1 by 5 until you reached the population of the earth? (Each person is inspired to do a good deed for 5 other people.) The powers of 5 are listed up until they reach over 6 billion.My kids completely got the message of the story and thought it was very cool. The only reason I feel this book is less than perfect is that the writing is not very fluent. Some of the situations that characters were in, for example, a homeless person, I had to explain in my own words to my children because the writing didn't make sense to my kids.It IS a nice story and I can see myself referring to the story throughout the raising of my children.

I first heard this book read by a Sunday School Teacher virtually. It has a simple way for children and grown-ups to understand the Bible Story of Jesus feeding the five thousand, yet written in a way that has a modern slant. It also has some math concepts (especially addition and multiplication) that would be useful for students, parents, and teachers.

The media could not be loaded.  I have always loved this book and first bought it years ago as a hard cover. I use it as a read aloud for my elementary students every year.This year I needed to get another copy for a project which students will get to take the book home and bought the soft cover. To my surprise: the book is updated with diverse characters and the final number reflects the many more people we have on earth.Grateful for the author and illustrator who made the choices of making this book more inclusive so children can use the book as a mirror or window. ❤️

Used in a K classroom. Hard for them to understand that just 1 person can change things.

This book fit in so well with the summer reading library program theme this year which was "Build a Better Tomorrow!" The character, Mary, starts with such a simple deed that grows and how many people are touched by it. It is a wonderful book that shows how doing something so small can change us for the better. There are wonderful characters in the book that we encounter each day in our every day livesOne of the little library friends said, "You don't have to be big to make a change in the world!" Doing an ordinary deed can truly help us build a better tomorrow!

Such a cute, sweet story about spreading kindness all the way around the world. I read this each year with my first graders and HIGHLY recommend it!

A wonderful story to teach children how kindness is contagious.

Esse livro fala como pequenas coisas que escolhemos fazer mudam o dia (ou a vida) de outras pessoas. É um tema muito bom, mas o modo como foi escrito o tornou um pouco decepcionante.O texto ficou muito longo, especialmente para crianças. E algumas partes são um pouco preconceituosas (por exemplo, um homem ficou surpreso ao ver que uma moradora de rua era honesta, embora fosse pobre).Gostei das ilustrações e da diagramação.

Great book, I bought it for an assembly and it's too long. Much better for smaller groups of children. I like the story and repetition is fun.

My Son liked it very much....

Excellent idea for a story, we loved it, although I don't think all the examples in the story are necessarily the best. Overall a brilliant book with a truly beautiful and powerful message! Teaches children the power of small random acts of kindness & gives them some agency to change the world one good deed at a time! Love it!