For Refugee Week 2025, Hollis has written a guest blog for the UK Refugee Week website about what we can all learn from children in creating kinder communities. She draws on her discussions with young children during international readings of her book Hello!:
‘How many ways can you think of to be kind?’
This question is not hypothetical. Rather, as the world convulses and we increasingly turn
against, rather than toward, one another, the question feels more pressing than it has in
generations. This question is both the closing of my refugee-themed picture book, ‘Hello! A
Counting Book of Kindnesses’, and the opening of discussions with young children when I do
readings in classrooms, libraries, or bookstores.Given the wisdom of their answers and ideas, I think we adults – from parents to
policymakers – could learn a lot from the youngest and most vulnerable among us.”