You’re never to0 young to benefit from the concepts of mindfulness and yoga! These kids yoga books are a great way to share the magic of yoga, wellness, and mindfulness with the littles in your life.
I love teaching kids yoga. To kids, yoga isn’t work, it’s a chance to move their bodies and play! No surprise there. But something I wasn’t expecting when I first taught children is how openly they respond to mindfulness and breath work. Kids seem to be pretty much go-go-go all day long, but it turns out they also love to calm down and settle.
I did a guest teaching spot for a friend’s pre-school class a few years ago. These at-risk kids were normally a rowdy bunch, all with their own special needs. My friend and her fellow teachers were slightly in awe as the group finished my short yoga class and happily sank into a peaceful Savasana.
Kids are naturals when it come to yoga asana and also when it comes to the peaceful, mindful side of the practice. The books on this list can really help you share these practices with the kids in your life.
- If you’re a parent, these books are a great way to introduce some of the yoga ideas of self-acceptance, mindfulness, and physical fitness to your child.
- If you’re a teacher these are great tools to bring to class and explore the exciting stories, poses, and possibilities that yoga offers.
There are books here for all age ranges of children, from preschool to teens. For grown-up children (like me), check our my other blog post about the best yoga books to expand your practice.
Yoga Books for Pre-Schoolers
Little Yoga: A Toddler’s First Book of Yoga
By Rebecca Whitford & Martina Selway
Anyone who has done yoga with young children around knows that toddlers love to experiment with twisting their bodies into the shapes they see adults do. Little Yoga: A Toddler’s First Book of Yoga, takes that natural interest and helps it grow.
This bright and cheery picture book shows young kids doing basic yoga poses and then illustrates animals doing the same poses to make them memorable and just a little more fun. If you want to connect with your toddler through yoga, this book is a great way to do it.
Yoga Bug Board Book Series
by Sarah Jane Hinder
This board book series all started with Yoga Bug, which quickly became one of the most popular yoga books for very young children. It’s a fun board book for infants and toddlers who are just starting out in their life’s journey. In Yoga Bug, kids can wiggle and squirm into popular yoga poses along with the colorful bugs in this book.
There are also instructions for adults included for each of the 10 poses, so you don’t need to worry about understanding the poses yourself!
The series now also includes Yoga Bear, Yoga Whale, and Yoga Bunny.
Young Kids Yoga Books
Breathe Like a Bear: 30 Mindful Moments for Kids to Feel Calm and Focused Anytime, Anywhere
by Kira Willey
Breathe Like a Bear is a beautifully illustrated collection of mindfulness exercises to teach kids techniques for managing their bodies, breath, and emotions. I bet my mom wishes she’d had this when I was growing up!
The book includes 30 short breathing practices and simple movements created specifically so that the can be done anywhere, at anytime.
With kids you never know when they’re going to need a little help calming down, but with the practices in Breathe Like a Bear it doesn’t matter if your’e in the car, at the grocery store, at school, or having trouble with homework.
Yoga for Children: 200+ Yoga Poses, Breathing Exercises, and Meditations for Healthier, Happier, More Resilient Children
by Lisa Flynn
If you’re interested in teaching yoga to children, or want to inspire your own kids to do yoga, Yoga for Children is a great teacher’s companion.
In the book, Lisa Flynn guides you and your child through more than 200 yoga poses, meditations, and other activities.
The book includes full-color photographs, step-by-step instructions, and even pose modifications, with the aim of helping to build your child’s confidence, self-awareness, and focus.
Barefoot Books Yoga Pretzels: 50 Fun Yoga Activities for Kids & Grownups
by Tara Guber and Leah Kalish
Kids (and grownups) can stretch their way to a fun and healthy lifestyle with each of the fifty yoga poses in Yoga Pretzels.
This is not actually a book but a deck of 50 cards with different yoga activities. It includes various kinds of yoga poses with instructions on how to do them: forward bends, back bends, partner poses, and balance poses. There are also breathing cards, with different kinds of pranayama described in animal terms, like Bumblebee Breath and Snake Breath.
The breath work is great for kids of all ages while the yoga poses are most suitable for school-age kids.
Good Night Yoga: A Pose-by-Pose Bedtime Story by Mariam Gates
Good Night Yoga is a playful yet practical book for preparing for sleep. Like so many of this yoga books for children it is beautifully illustrated.
This sweet and soothing book tells the story of the natural world as it closes down for the night, weaving in a simple flow of yoga postures inspired by the characters in nature, to help your kids relax their body and mind for a restful sleep.
Mariam Gates has also written a companion book called Good Morning Yoga: A Pose-by-Pose Wake Up Story.
Books for Older Kids
The Gita For Children
by Roopa Pai
The Bhagavad Gita is one of the oldest books in the world but it can take years and years of study before yoga students begin to understand the text.
Maybe we should all start with Roopa Pai’s retelling, the Gita for Children. It describes the tale of the conversation between Arjuna and his mentor and friend Krishna in more easily understood terms.
In this translation, which she created especially for children, she presents all 18 chapters of The Gita in a way that makes the story clear and easy to understand. Many adults also love her translation because it takes away much of the confusion around the text and presents it in a clear and logical way.
Also recommended by Roopa Pai is The Vedas and Upanishads for Children.
The Little Book of Hindu Deities: From the Goddess of Wealth to the Sacred Cow
by Sanjay Patel
Pixar animator and Oscar–nominated director Sanjay Patel brings to life Hinduism’s most important gods and goddesses in The Little Book of Hindu Deities. This fun children’s book is filled with beautiful full-color illustrations.
Pixar animator and Oscar–nominated director Sanjay Patel brings to life Hinduism’s most important gods and goddesses in The Little Book of Hindu Deities. This fun children’s book is filled with beautiful full-color illustrations.
The Little Book of Hindu Deities is packed with demons and warriors, divine divas and gutsy gods. Why does Ganesha have an elephant head? Why is Kali known as The Black One? Patel has written the perfect book to help you share these fun and educational stories with your kids!
Also by Sanjay Patel is Ganesha’s Sweet Tooth, a retelling of how Ganesha came to help write the epic poem of Hindu literature, the Mahabharata.
Myths of the Asanas: The Stories at the Heart of the Yoga Tradition
by Alanna Kaivalya and Arjuna van der Kooij
This is a great book for teenagers who want to learn more about the Hindu stories and mythology. Along with the stories, the book also includes short descriptions for a selection of featured asanas that includes an image, myths, stories and teachings behind the asana.
In class, yoga teachers might mention that Hanumanasana is named after Hanuman, but do you know why? The why behind pose names such as Hanumanasana, Astavakrasana, Vishvamitrasana and Garudasana expands these poses and makes them more inspiring. Discovering these stories can help you to embody the ideals wrapped up in the characters the poses are named after.
For teens who are interested in yoga, these stories can add a new dimension to their understanding of yoga and their practice.
Milk and Honey
by Rupi Kaur
This isn’t technically a yoga book — in fact, Milk and Honey is a collection of poetry. Rupi Kaur is an amazing poet and her writings are influenced by her Sikh heritage, mixed with a modern Canadian woman’s perspective on life, love, and loss.
Rupi wrote this, her first poetry collection, when she was little more than a teenager. It was published when she was 24 and it has now been published in more than 40 languages!
The Huffington Post said, “Her work is simply but powerfully expressed, and viscerally captures both universal human experience and the particular struggles of a young woman today.” Not only will her poetry inspire you, but Rupi herself is one inspiring badass woman!
A Final Note About Yoga Books for Kids
As adults who do yoga (and if you’re reading this post, I am going to assume you fall into that category) we know how important the practice of yoga is and how transformative it can be.
The books I recommend in this post will help you help your children and younger students explore those benefits as well. I wish I had learned the tools of yoga when I was growing up — that ball of frenetic energy could have used something to help him be more focussed and calm. And at the very least I would have been inspired by hearing about all the trouble that little Krishna gets up to!
See you on (and off) the ice OMies, Stephen 
