Kevin Henkes' Lilly

Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse
by Kevin Henkes
Lilly's character was introduced ten years ago in this popular story by a prolific author, Kevin Henkes. Lilly is a lovably fallible mouse and the story of how her exciting new purse distracts her at school is real and familiar. Its resolution is satisfying and reassuring. The comprehension strategy of making text-to-self connections and literary element of characterization will be easy to encourage with this story. Wording used to tell the story is richly descriptive (squeaky, pointy, crispy, curly, crunchy, glittery, jingly) and offers an opportunity to expand vocabulary with words likely to be new to many children (jaunty, deluxe, amused, uncooperative, sampled, unique.)

Lilly's Big Day
by Kevin Henkes
In "Lilly's Big Day", Lilly's teacher Mr. Slinger shares his big news with his class: he's getting married! Lilly is very excited about being a flower girl in the wedding although she has not been asked. She practices and pretends, but Mr. Slinger 's niece, Ginger, has been chosen for the job. This story has fewer descriptive words than its predecessor, but offers uncommon nouns (reception, ceremony, assistant, corsage, aisle) and wonderful verbs (considered, exist, swelled, motioned, scooped, noticed, exhausted) that can be used to teach vocabulary or to help enrich writing. The story can be used with "Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse" to help children make text-to-text connections.


Story Props for Lilly books



Some IKEA stores have a soft toy that looks
very much like Lilly for under $5.00, as of this posting.