Ordinary Mary's Extraordinary Deed

This book is about how helping just one or two people can make a huge difference. The little girl in this story does a good deed for five people, and they do the same for five more people. In the end everyone has something nice done for them and it changes the world. This would be great to talk to

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a class about helping others and not being selfish. The benefits from being nice can one day come back and help you out! This book was illustrated by Fumi Kosaka.

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This book is about a little girl named Mary who is no different than any other kids at her school. One day though she decided to pick some blueberries that she passed by on her way home. She picked the berries and then sat them in a basket on Mrs. Bishop's porch. Mrs. Bishop was so happy that she

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made muffins and gave them to five different people. Each of those five people were so happy that they helped five other people. The book goes on to show how just one small child and one small nice favor can change so many people.

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Great book that shows the influence that just one person can have by doing one nice thing for someone else.

This book is about how helping just one or two people can make a huge difference. The little girl in this story does a good deed for five people, and they do the same for five more people. In the end everyone has something nice done for them and it changes the world. This would be great to talk to

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a class about helping others and not being selfish. The benefits from being nice can one day come back and help you out!

Show Less

A kid's version of paying it forward. Ordinary Mary's gifts of blueberries to her neighbors inspires one to make blueberry muffins for others who are further inspired to do good. Each time, the gift of kindness is passed forward to others until over 6 billion people (as illustrated in a pyramid of

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numbers) have been touched, all thanks to Mary's one simple act.

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When an ordinary little girl named Mary picks some blueberries for her elderly neighbor, she has no idea that she is setting in motion a chain reaction of good deeds and good feelings that will eventually include the entire world. As each person is helped, the happiness they feel leads them to help

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five others, with kindness radiating outward from its original source - the eponymous Ordinary Mary - and then finding its way back to her again...

Although I do think that its heart is in the right place, and appreciate the message of "paying it forward" that the narrative encourages, somehow Ordinary Mary's Extraordinary Deed didn't quite win me over. I liked the idea of the book, but wasn't particularly moved by it, emotionally speaking. I also wasn't especially impressed by the writing, which incorporates the occasional rhyme, but is otherwise unremarkable. The accompanying artwork by illustrator Fumi Kosaka was likewise not really my cup of tea. Tastes vary, of course, and I can see some really taking this story of a chain reaction of kind deeds to heart. I'd recommend that the potential reader try it, and see for themselves how they feel.

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A young girl's good deed is multiplied as it is passed on by those who have been touched by the kindesss of others.