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For Parents

We tend to create our own problems--and no one makes this point better than Lilly, maybe my favorite character in all of children's literature. (Certainly up there with Ramona.)

Lilly the mouse gets a purple plastic purse and brings it to school, and the purse, once a great gift, soon becomes a nemesis. Lilly feels her purse isn't winning adequate attention, so she becomes more and more desperate in her spotlight-seeking efforts. Disciplinary action is required.

"Lilly's Big Day"--which counts as Kevin Henkes's magnum opus--has Lilly's teacher getting married off. Lilly believes she is entitled to a role as flower girl, and when she learns she has been shafted, she struggles mightily. Who could fail to empathize with a child learning that she is not the center of the universe? A child learning that a crushed desire is not the end of the world? And why hadn't someone--before Henkes--thought to make this particular problem the subject of a story?

But Henkes can also work on a smaller scale.

"Lilly's Chocolate Heart" has Lilly worrying at the end of Valentine's Day. There is a heart to be saved, and yet where can you save it? It's too wide for the window ledge. Too thick to fit between books. Too vulnerable to store on top of the radiator.

There's one solution--obviously--and it's inside your stomach. End of story.

I love this story for putting us in a child's mind: Would anyone but a child really struggle with this dilemma? I love--also--that it makes us consider the tactile and spatial properties of a piece of chocolate--wide, thick, soft--in a way that recalls "Buttons," from the Saga of Frog and Toad. I also love that Lilly almost certainly knew, all along, how she would "solve" her problem--even if she couldn't admit this to herself.

Henkes has several more years of writing left--I think--and I hope he'll revisit Lilly before he retires. I remain his most ardent fan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBZKC0YdPag


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