Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes, 1996.

Lilly loves going to school, and she especially loves her teacher, Mr. Slinger. Everyone in class thinks that he’s great, and he inspires a lot of them, including Lilly, to want to be teachers themselves.

One day, after a special shopping trip with her grandmother, Lilly gains a some special new treasures: movie star sunglasses, some quarters, and a purple plastic purse that plays a tune when she opens it. Eager to show off her new things to her friends, Lilly brings them to school. However, she just can’t wait until recess or Sharing Time to show everyone. She keeps trying to draw attention to these things while the teacher is talking and opening the purse so it keeps playing its tune.

Finally, after repeated warnings, Mr. Slinger is forced to confiscate Lilly’s purse with its other treasures. Lilly is hurt and feels betrayed by her favorite teacher. Sad and angry at having her treasures taken from her, she draws a mean picture of her teacher as a purse thief, leaving the picture where she knows he will find it.

However, Mr. Slinger isn’t as mean as Lilly thinks that he is when he takes her purse. After he gives the purse back to her, she discovers a nice note from him inside, telling her that tomorrow will be a better day, and there’s even a little bag of snacks. Now, Lilly feels guilty about her mean picture. It’s too late to get it back, and she worries that her teacher will never forgive her.

The story is really good at showing how Lilly’s emotions change through the course of the day and how her sadness and anger grow more urgent the more she thinks and worries about them. It’s a good story to use when talking about feelings with young children (through the course of the story, Lilly is happy, excited, sad, betrayed, angry, guilty, worried, and embarrassed – some of these are stated explicitly and some are more implied) and how to deal with emotions. Adults can talk to children how one kind of emotion can lead to another (like how Lilly’s sadness turns to anger at her teacher for making her feel sad by confiscating her purse) and how some ways of dealing with emotions are better than others. It is both creative and appropriate that Lilly used her drawing ability to both insult her teacher and, later, apologize to him.

Fortunately, both Lilly’s parents and her teacher are very understanding. Her parents reassure her that her teacher will forgive her. Lilly draws a new, nicer picture of her teacher to go with her apology to him, and her parents give her some snacks to give to him as well. He does forgive her, and she finally gets to show everyone her amazing purple plastic purse at Sharing Time (being careful not to disturb anyone with them at other times.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive. It is part of Mouse Books series.