Reddit mentions of Saying What You Mean

Mostly awesome suggestions in here! Just a reminder - if you're stocking up, be sure you include some nonfiction books, or at the very least, realistic fiction. We seem to be a lot of fantasy lovers in here (myself included!), but some kids just aren't into that.

One set that I recommend is "The Survival Series for Kids" by Joy Wilt Berry, which are all dealing-with-regular-life or etiquette stuff, such as cleaning your room, learning first aid, "getting dressed" (ie choosing appropriate clothes and caring for your clothes), taking care of a lawn, and so on. They are informative, have cute pictures, and funny dialogue between the characters in the margins.

For younger readers, the same author has a series of what are basically graphic novels, called the "Ready-Set-Grow" series (partial set linked here for <$20 on ebay!). Those ones have just a few lines per page. They are more of making sure kids grow up confident and understanding how life works. They cover subjects like decision making, recognizing and handling emotions, handling differences of opinion, understanding that people are all different, dangerous things, verbal and nonverbal communication, being creative... it's hard to convey in such a small space, but they basically cover a lot of topics that well-adjusted parents usually go over with their kids on their way through life, helping the kids become well-adjusted. Some of them are a bit outdated, but even then they're pretty good. For instance the one introducing the concept of gender is titled "You're Either One or the Other" which would scare people nowadays, but the actual text spends the whole book explaining that people are just people, some guys like football and some like dancing, some girls like dressup and some like climbing trees, etc - in other words, be accepting of differences.

The best thing is that they're written in a way that kids can understand and relate to, with enough humor to not be stuffy.

I cannot recommend these books highly enough, especially for kids who are in less-than-ideal homes. They are incredible.