Some Friends
A Kids Guide to Equity in the Classroom
Sarah Van Kruistum is a kindergarten educator (and mom to four) based in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. She believes stories are powerful tools for building empathy, sparking conversations, and helping children explore big ideas like equity in ways they can understand. Inspired by her own students and the challenges faced in the classroom, she wrote her first book to be used as a read-aloud, a tool to guide inclusive discussions and help children begin to understand what equity means and why it matters. This book was created with both heart and purpose, especially for teachers, families, and young readers navigating the world together.
Windha Nindya, based out of Madiun, Jawa Timur, Indonesia, is a passionate children's book illustrator with a love for storytelling through art. With eight years of experience bringing characters to life, she specializes in creating whimsical, expressive, and colorful illustrations that captivate young readers. Whether you're an author with a magical story or a publisher looking for vibrant artwork, she's here to help turn your vision into a beautiful, story-driven reality.
As a teacher, Sarah has spent years in classrooms full of incredibly diverse learners. Every child enters the room with their own story, some with big emotions, some with invisible struggles, and all with unique strengths and needs. She has often found herself trying to explain to other students (and even some well-meaning adults) why one child might need more time, another might need a quieter space, or why a student sometimes gets extra attention, reminders, or support.
In these moments, she realized something important: equity is hard to explain, especially to children. It can look, to a five-year-old, like a classmate is getting "special treatment" or that the teacher is being unfair. But the truth is, fairness isn't always everyone getting the same thing, it's everyone getting what they need to succeed.
Sarah wrote Some Friends to help make that concept more accessible to young learners. It's a gentle, age-appropriate introduction to equity, meant to spark empathy and understanding within the classroom. She wanted to give children the language to make sense of what they see around them, and to recognize that when a teacher gives a little more to one child, it's not about playing favourites, it's about helping everyone be successful.
This book is designed to be used as a teaching tool. It's written as a read-aloud story that invites teachers to pause and reflect, ask questions, define terms, and use the included glossary to guide meaningful conversations about equity and diversity. The hope is that it helps educators start these important conversations in a developmentally appropriate way, in primary and junior classrooms.