Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes (1996)

Lilly s Purple Plastic Purse is another wonderful book by Kevin Henkes. Like his other books it is wonderfully written and beautifully illustrated. It is a joy to read and it is, lucky for me, one of my daughter s favorite books.

This book is about a little mouse girl named Lilly. Lilly loves school. She loves all the cool things she has and does at school but most of all she loves her teacher Mr. Slinger. Mr. Slinger is a very cool teacher, he dresses differently, let the children sit in a semi-circle rather than in rows. He feeds them yummy snacks. Lilly wants to be a teacher when she grows up. She even practices teaching on her baby brother. Lilly adores Mr. Slinger. She makes up wonderful stories about him, claps the erasers for him and tells him she wants to be a teacher just like him when she grows up.

Then one Monday morning, Lilly brings her brand new purple plastic purse with three shiny new quarters in it and her movie star glasses to school with her. Lilly wants to share her wonderful things-especially her purple plastic purse that plays a nifty toon when it s opened.

Lilly keeps trying to share-even though her teacher tells her she needs to wait for sharing time, or recess. Lilly tries to wait-but she can t. So she shows off her purse, her quarters and her glasses-even though she isn t supposed to.

This makes Mr. Slinger angry and he takes away Lilly s fantastic purple plastic musical purse with her shiny quarters and movie star glasses and puts them all in his desk. This makes Lilly VERY angry. She draws a nasty mean angry picture of Mr. Slinger and slips it into his bag before she leaves. Mr. Slinger gives Lilly back her purse and all its wonderful things.

On the way home, Lilly finds that Mr. Slinger has put a note and a bag of snacks inside her purse-and she starts to feel really, really bad about the picture she left him. At home Lilly sits in The Unco-operative Chair . Then her parents help her bake some snacks, and she draws a wonderfully nice picture of Mr. Slinger.

The next day, Lilly gives Mr. Slinger the new picture, and the snacks and tells him how really, really, really, really, really sorry she is. Mr. Slinger accepts her apology, and Lilly shares her snacks and shows off her really cool purple plastic purse, her three shiny quarters, and her movie star glasses. Lilly puts her special things away in her desk, where she can check on them whenever she wants.

This is such a wonderful children s book. It has some wonderful lessons, about sharing, about behaving nicely and doing what you are told. This book teaches about having patience and about how everyone gets to have a turn, if they wait. the story is fun and delightful. This is a story that almost every little girl will love. I would recommend this book for girls ages 5-8 and the story is fun enough that mom and dad might just enjoy it too.