Lilly is a cute little white mouse who loves school. She loves the sharpened pencils (she’s a mouse after my own heart) and she loves the chalk (okay, not so much) and her desk and her lunch and her teacher, Mr. Slinger. He was so wonderful. He wore a different colored tie every day of the week. He was friendly, he let them rearrange their desks, and he brought snacks. Being a teacher would be really cool, Lilly thought.
She decided to play teacher when she got home, using her baby brother Julius as her student. She told her parents she wanted her own set of picture encyclopedias. And she drew lots of pictures of Mr. Slinger.
One day Lilly was even more excited to come to school. Her Grammy had taken her shopping over the weekend and she had new sunglasses and a new purple plastic purse that played a song when she opened it. She couldn’t wait to show it off.
But it wasn’t time to show it off, and she did it anyway and disrupted the class. Mr. Slinger took her things until the end of the day, and she felt terrible. And she got mad. And she drew a mad picture of Mr. Slinger, and she put it in Mr. Slinger’s school bag.
On her way home, she opened her purse and found a note from Mr. Slinger. It said, “Today was a difficult day. Tomorrow will be better.” And he put a treat in her purse. She felt terrible and ran home to tell her parents what had happened.
They made Mr. Slinger some treats and she wrote him a wonderful story. The next day, she took him her present and apologized. They decided to forget all about the mean picture. And you know what, it was a much better day.
(This book was published in 1996 by Greenwillow Books and was illustrated by the author.)
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