"What Could They Do?" Picture-Book Conflict Talks

A shared-reading routine using picture books where characters get stuck in a conflict — Enemy Pie, Stick and Stone, Llama Llama Time to Share, Should I Share My Ice Cream?, The Recess Queen. Pause before the resolution: “What could they do?” The child brainstorms — sometimes wildly, sometimes wisely. Then read the resolution and compare. Bibliotherapy meets dialogic reading.

  1. Build a small “conflict-resolution shelf” of 6–10 picture books. Starter list: Enemy Pie (Munson); Stick and Stone (Ferry); Llama Llama Time to Share (Dewdney); Should I Share My Ice Cream? (Willems); The Recess Queen (O’Neill); Chrysanthemum (Henkes); The Crayon Box That Talked (DeRolf); Big Umbrella (Bates); Hands Are Not for Hitting (Agassi); Words Are Not for Hurting (Verdick).
  2. Read at a regular calm time — bedtime, post-bath, after-lunch. Not in the middle of a real conflict.
  3. Use the dialogic reading PEER frame — Prompt (“What’s happening on this page?”), Evaluate (“Yes, the cake fell”), Expand (“And the icing splatted on his shirt”), Repeat (“Can you tell me about the cake?”). Active dialogue, not just reading aloud.
  4. Pause at the conflict peak. Just before the resolution: close the book gently on your finger. “What could they do?” Let the child generate ideas. Take all suggestions including the silly ones. The brainstorm itself is the skill — not the correctness.
  5. Read the actual resolution. “Let’s see what happened.” Compare to the child’s ideas. “Yours was like the book’s!” or “The book chose a different way.” Both options are valid — the book is a thought partner, not the answer key.
  6. Tie back gently to real life — later, not in the moment. “Remember when Stick stood up for Stone? That’s what you did for your friend today.” Or, only if the connection is light and the child is calm, a sentence the next day: “Hmm — what would the Llama Llama book say about this?”

Variation: draw your own ending — child draws what the character should do; act out the scene with stuffed animals; make up a new conflict for the characters; family book club with discussion at dinner. For multilingual families, bilingual books (Te quiero / I love you) double as language and SEL practice.

Requirements

  • Space: Anywhere comfortable for reading — sofa, bed, floor
  • Surface: Comfortable seated spot
  • Materials: 6–10 conflict-resolution picture books (a small shelf or basket); optional small notebook for "what could they do?" drawings; optional bookmarks the child decorates
  • Participants: 1 adult + 1 child; family group; small sibling pair
  • Supervision: This *is* the supervision — close shared reading

Rationale & Objective

Dialogic reading — the back-and-forth style of picture-book reading developed by Whitehurst (Whitehurst et al., 1988) — has nearly four decades of evidence for language and literacy outcomes. Fettig, Cook, Morizio, Gould & Brodsky (2018) extended this to social- emotional outcomes, demonstrating in an exploratory case study that dialogic reading with SEL-themed books promotes empathy, perspective-taking, and emotion vocabulary in young children. Bibliotherapy — using stories as therapeutic tools — has a long practitioner tradition (Pardeck & Pardeck, 1993) and growing empirical support for early-childhood SEL outcomes (Roberts & Crawford, 2008; Heath, Sheen, Leavy, Young & Money, 2005). The “what could they do?” pause is the active ingredient: it converts passive listening into generative problem-solving with the safety of fictional characters. Theory of mind research (Kidd & Castano, 2013; Mar & Oatley, 2008) finds that literary fiction reading specifically improves mentalising — the child practises imagining the inner lives of others through the text. Honest caveat: transfer from book to real-life behaviour is gradual and depends on dialogue-rich reading, not just reading aloud; passive read-alouds without the pause-and-discuss step give a much weaker effect.

Progress Indicators

  • Early: doesn’t engage with the pause; says “I don’t know” or repeats the conflict back; struggles to take the character’s perspective
  • Developing: offers one solution when prompted; the solution may not fit the character but it’s a real attempt; recognises feelings in characters with help
  • Proficient: generates 2–3 plausible solutions; predicts character feelings; spontaneously connects the book to a real-life situation later
  • Advanced: critically evaluates the book’s resolution (“I don’t think that would work — the friend is still mad”); proposes alternative endings; uses book-borrowed language in real conflicts (“You’re being a Recess Queen”)

Safety Notes

  • Pre-read each book once before introducing it; some children’s books that look conflict-themed contain content (loss, violence, scary themes) that may not match your child’s readiness
  • For children sensitive to themes of exclusion or bullying, screen books like The Recess Queen before reading; books that depict the harm too vividly without enough resolution can land as scary, not instructive
  • Avoid using a book to deliver an indirect lecture ("You’re acting like Mean Jean from the book") — kills the book’s safe-space status; the connection should be invitation, not accusation
  • Skip books that moralise heavily in favour of books that show the conflict and resolution organically; over-moralised SEL books often bore 5-year-olds and don’t transfer well
  • Watch for book-fatigue — if the child resists the conflict-resolution shelf, leave it for a fortnight and rotate in pure-fun books; SEL reading should not feel like therapy
  • For multilingual or recently-immigrated families, ensure the books reflect a range of cultures and family structures; a 5-year-old who never sees their own life in books learns the book-world doesn’t include them

Hints

  • Playfulness: give the characters voices; let the child do the voices too; act out a scene with puppets after reading (links beautifully to the Puppet Conflict Theatre); “book of the week” poster on the fridge with a drawing the child makes
  • Sustain interest: rotate the shelf every 4–6 weeks; introduce books just slightly above the current emotional vocabulary so the child stretches; library trips together to pick new ones; family bookmark-making so each child has their own bookmark for the shelf
  • Common mistake: reading without pausing (passive listening doesn’t build the skill); over-using the “this is just like you!” connection (the moral hammer); skipping the brainstorm (“let’s see what happens” without first asking “what could they do?”); choosing books that are too didactic or moralised; reading the same book endlessly without rotation
  • Limited space: library books eliminate the storage issue entirely; audiobook + parent paused at the conflict for car journeys; for very small spaces, a single rotating book and library cycles work well
  • Cross-domain: vocabulary expansion (literacy + language); naming character feelings (emotional literacy); predicting outcomes (cognitive flexibility, working memory); drawing alternative endings (visual arts + creative thinking); pair with the Puppet Conflict Theatre to act out the scenes; book-borrowed language strengthens the I-Feel Statement Practice
  • Progression: adult reads, child listens → adult uses dialogic prompts, child responds → adult pauses for “what could they do?”, child brainstorms → child predicts the resolution before reading on → child re-reads independently and discusses → child invents new endings or new conflicts for the same characters

Sources

  • Whitehurst, G. J., Falco, F. L., Lonigan, C. J., Fischel, J. E., DeBaryshe, B. D., Valdez-Menchaca, M. C. & Caulfield, M. (1988). “Accelerating language development through picture book reading.” Developmental Psychology, 24(4), 552–559 — dialogic reading PEER framework
  • Fettig, A., Cook, A. L., Morizio, L., Gould, K. & Brodsky, L. (2018). “Using dialogic reading strategies to promote social-emotional skills for young students: An exploratory case study in an after-school program.” Journal of Early Childhood Research, 16(3), 250–264
  • Doyle, B. G. & Bramwell, W. (2006). “Promoting emergent literacy and social-emotional learning through dialogic reading.” The Reading Teacher, 59(6), 554–564
  • Heath, M. A., Sheen, D., Leavy, D., Young, E. & Money, K. (2005). “Bibliotherapy: A resource to facilitate emotional healing and growth.” School Psychology International, 26(5), 563–580
  • Pardeck, J. T. & Pardeck, J. A. (1993). Bibliotherapy: A Clinical Approach for Helping Children. Routledge
  • Kidd, D. C. & Castano, E. (2013). “Reading literary fiction improves theory of mind.” Science, 342(6156), 377–380
  • Mar, R. A. & Oatley, K. (2008). “The function of fiction is the abstraction and simulation of social experience.” Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3(3), 173–192
  • Roberts, S. K. & Crawford, P. A. (2008). “Real life calls for real books: Literature to help children cope with family stressors.” Young Children, 63(5), 12–17
  • Aram, D. & Aviram, S. (2009). “Mothers’ storybook reading and kindergartners’ socioemotional and literacy development.” Reading Psychology, 30(2), 175–194
  • Munson, D. (2000). Enemy Pie. Chronicle Books
  • Ferry, B. (2015). Stick and Stone. HMH Books
  • Dewdney, A. (2012). Llama Llama Time to Share. Viking
  • Willems, M. (2011). Should I Share My Ice Cream? Hyperion
  • O’Neill, A. (2002). The Recess Queen. Scholastic
  • Head Start ELOF — Language and Communication; Social and Emotional Development
  • CASEL — Social Awareness (empathy through narrative)