IRVINE : Kindness Puts Kids in Print

Lisa Hoang learned that small kindnesses come back in unexpected ways after she threw a surprise party for a friend last summer.

Her friend’s parents were too busy moving to celebrate her birthday and Lisa, a fifth-grader at Irvine’s Greentree Elementary School, felt sorry for her.

“She was so happy she cried,” Lisa wrote in an essay about the incident. She had no way of knowing that her act of kindness would lead her to become a published author.

Lisa was one of 12 students from the Greentree school whose essays were chosen for a book titled “Kids’ Random Acts of Kindness,” released this week.

The book was modeled on the adult best seller “Random Acts of Kindness.” The children’s version, already set for a second printing, is a collection of short essays by 58 children around the country, including the dozen from Greentree.

At a book-signing at the school on Wednesday, 12-year-old author Alexander Jackson said, “My mom didn’t realize how big this was. She thought it was some little paperback that you would find in a thrift shop.”

The book, published by Berkeley’s Conari Press, is a glossy 122 pages with a forward by former First Lady Rosalynn Carter.

Alexander’s essay recalls the time he went into a bakery and ordered something because the firm seemed to be suffering from a lack of business.

The owners, a newly arrived Norwegian couple, “gave me a big piece of the best chocolate cake, then they showed me around,” he wrote.

Greentree Principal Dianne Daugherty had distributed “Random Acts of Kindness” to her teachers in December, who then asked the students to write about something kind that they or someone else had done that day.

“I found it was really self-perpetuating,” said fifth-grade teacher Karen Miles. “They tend to think that acts of kindness are grand gestures, and they didn’t realize they do so many small things during the day and it makes such a difference.”

The students also are pleased with themselves.

Michael Yau, 9, announced proudly that he now commits a random act of kindness “almost every day.”

Justin Courtright, a 10-year-old at Greentree, told of being in a toy store looking for a special toy when he noticed another child looking for the same thing.

“Mom saw one and got it down from the top shelf,” he wrote. “And then I went to the boy and gave it to the boy.”

And Aaron Greeley, 11, helped his mother out when she arrived at a movie theater and realized she did not have enough money to buy tickets for Aaron and his cousins.

“I luckely (sic) I had twenty dollar bill in my pocket and I paid for my cousin and I,” he wrote. “It cost me $9.45 but it was nothing.”