The Return of Lilly
By Kevin Henkes

In this feature appearing every May, a well-known author tells us what inspired one of his or her best works.

The seed of inspiration for Lilly's Big Day (Greenwillow, 2006) was planted 10 years ago. My book Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse (Greenwillow) was originally called Lilly in Love. In the first drafts of that story, Lilly loved her teacher, Mr. Slinger, until he announced to the class that he was getting married. After the announcement, Lilly became jealous and acted out in class.

The idea seemed feasible, but I couldn't get the book to come together. I decided to put it away and work on other projects. It wasn't until much later, when I saw a little girl in an airport annoying her father with a music-playing plastic purse, that I figured out what I needed to make the pieces of Lilly In Love fall into place to form a book. I dropped the wedding piece, kept Lilly's relationship with Mr. Slinger, added the purse, and Lilly In Love became Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, published in 1996.

Another seed. Since then I've wanted to write another Lilly picture book and I did try a couple of times. I kept coming back to Mr. Slinger's getting married, thinking it provided the perfect set-up for a good story. Nothing worked. I wrote other books. But the idea wouldn't go away.

Here's another seed. Over the years I've lived through my nieces' flower girl experiences. One of them ran wildly down the aisle, rather than walking slowly, and upon reaching the altar shouted, "See, I told you I could do it!"

Another one carefully placed flower petals on the floor, one at a time, very slowly, instead of tossing handfuls of them as she'd been directed. And, more recently, a few of my daughter's friends have been flower girls. So this was a subject I was aware of, something we talked about in our house.

She's back! Mysteriously, magically, these two threads – the flower girl business and the idea of having Mr. Slinger get married – came together. It seemed logical that Lilly would want and expect to be Mr. Slinger's flower girl. This situation felt exactly right, and soon funny ideas were coming to me. I needed to create Ginger and Ms. Shotwell and all the other details that make a book complete. But, I'd finally arrived at that happy place where I know I've got something that, with time and work, will become a real book.

Lilly made her first appearance in 1988 in Chester's Way (Greenwillow). It seems impossible to me that she's been around nearly 20 years. Impossible that it's been 10 years since Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse was published. I was happy as I polished words and drew the pictures for Lilly's Big Day. It felt so nice to have her back in my daily work life!

Illustrations © 2006 by Kevin Henkes, Lilly's Big Day (greenwillow books)