How to Celebrate Holi with Kids

Holi is an important holiday in the Hindu faith that is celebrated around the world. It’s a moving holiday based on the full moon, but it marks the beginning of spring and is a triumph of good over evil and light over dark. It’s also known as the festival of colors because of the colorful powder (known as gulal) that is thrown at everyone during the celebration.

If you need a refresher or want a book about the holiday for your home or classroom, check out Holi by Sital Gorasia Chapman, illustrated by Pranami Bora. This book tells the story of a family getting ready for Holi by making their own gulal from flowers and vegetables in the garden, making food and taking part in celebrations.

The book covers the story of Holika, a demon who tried to kill the king’s son, Prahlad, who worshiped Vishnu instead of worshipping his father. When Vishnu saved Prahlad, evil was defeated, which is celebrated at Holi. There are also some crafts, a recipe and more stories about the gods (including the story of Shiva and Rati, which is a popular Holi story in southern India).

I’ve shared some Holi crafts and activities in the past, but here are some more ideas for you.

Craft My World has a cute idea using colored powder to make a rangoli (sort of a mandala design made out of powder).

Little Ladoo has a great collection of other ways to make rangoli with paper plates, paper quilling, coloring pages and more. I also love their story of Holi craft that helps tell the story of Holika and Prahlad (which they spell Praglad; I was just going with the book’s spelling above). A little grim, but actually pretty cute.

This post from Artsy Craftsy Mom includes a video talking about how to make gulal at home. I’ve shared some of the crafts linked there before but it’s got a lot of good ideas. (I also made throwing powder once and it didn’t stick amazingly well but it was still fun to play with!)

If you celebrate Holi I’d love to hear about how you do it at home or in the classroom!

Growing Up Ladybug and How to Become a Butterfly are both by Stepanka Sekaninova and illustrated by Linh Dao, and they came out at the same time and are on similar themes, so let’s look at them together.

Growing Up Ladybug is narrated by Mariella, a seven-spot ladybug. She talks about the parts of a ladybug, where they live, different kinds of ladybugs, why humans love them, their defenses against predators and the life cycle of a ladybug.

The drawings are cute if not always scientifically accurate, it’s not in such a way that’s likely to confuse kids (who probably already know that ladybug mamas don’t push their larval babies around in strollers, for instance.

It’s a good general description of the life cycle of a lady bug and why we like having them around.

About the book: 32 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by Albatross Media. Suggested retail price $16.95.

Similarly, How to Become a Butterfly covers the life cycle of a butterfly, starting with caterpillars eating burning nettle leaves. (Here Amanda is the narrator.) The book talks about a few of the more than 18,000 daytime butterflies in the world as well as other creatures that live in the meadow (there’s that ladybug again, along with crickets, bees and other bugs).

It also covers some of the enemies of caterpillars like wasps and spiders, and the defenses that caterpillars use to try to prevent being eaten. It illustrates how caterpillars grow and change as they molt and prepare to pupate, and what a caterpillar looks like before and while it is forming its chrysalis. And while the book uses the word metamorphasis it doesn’t really talk about what happens between the caterpillar forming a chrysalis and the butterfly hatching.

This butterfly is a peacock butterfly, and once it hatches the book covers the parts of a butterfly and the life cycle. It also talks about nocturnal moths (though it says nocturnal butterflies are “usually called moths” when moths are actually a different species) and what butterflies do at night.

I’m maybe a little hard on this book because my daughter is a butterfly expert from way back, but it is still cute and good for the very basic basics of the butterfly life cycle.

Both books would be fun additions to your bookshelf for younger kids starting to learn about different animals or who have an interest in insects.

About the book: 32 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by Albatross Media. Suggested retail price $16.95.

Have you read?

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