Happy Valentine’s Day! There is certainly no shortage of books about love out there, but I tend to be pretty choosy about my Valentine’s Day read-alouds. This week, I was very excited to substitute teach an adorable Kindergarten class, and I tested a few Valentine’s day books out on them. Kindergartners are brutally honest, and can be some of the harshest critics, so I figured I’d run a few by them and share their favorites.

First up, their absolute favorite.

Robot In Love, by T.L. McBeth was our clear winner. It’s a story about a robot who falls in love one day and tries to work up the courage to introduce himself. The kids thought all the robot language was hilarious, and at the end, when it was revealed that the robot fell in love with a toaster, they completely lost it.

Worm Loves Worm, by Mike Curato came in a close second place. It tells the story of two worms who want to get married. But worms have never gotten married before, so there is some confusion, and some modifications have to be made, but in the end they make it happen, because Worm loves Worm. While the message of marriage equality is very subtle, the story very sweetly reminds us that marriage is about two people (or worms in this case) being in love and wanting to be married, and nothing should get in the way of that.

This book, while not as exciting or funny as the other two, is absolutely beautiful and worth sharing. LOVE is not a story, but rather a depiction of love in many forms. It portrays different ways that we show love for one another, and features a very diverse set of characters. I read this one very deliberately with my students, because a lot of it would have been lost on them otherwise, and I recommend that you read it slowly and spend a lot of time on the pictures as well. One of my favorite moments reading this story was when a student asked about the hand signal that a character in the book was giving, and we talked about how the character was deaf, and then we practiced signing “I love you.”

Here’s to a very happy Valentine’s Day. I hope you enjoy it with the ones you love (and the books you love as well)!