Books selected for this honour are vetted through Time
Magazine’s Children’s Book review editor.
A review by Time
Magazine, "What could be more gratifying to kindergartners than correcting
their teacher's "mistakes"? When Mrs Millie tells her charges to hang up their
goats and get out their paper and penguins, they loudly and gleefully put her
right, as little readers surely will too. ("We know what you mean," the
kindergartners yell.) Half the fun comes from seeing Mrs Millie's misnomers made
literal in Mathieu's drawings. One depicts a perplexed primate who finds himself
serving as filler in a "gorilla cheese sandwich"; another shows the indignant
weasel on whom the kids happily daub their paintings. As the school day ends,
the kids have a snack of parrot sticks and quackers, then say butterfly and get
on the octopus to ride home. Cox, herself a kindergarten teacher, knows that
more than confusion reigns when 4- and 5-year-olds are teased into sorting out
sound-alike words. In fact, if you recognize how much verbal comprehension is
conveyed by the jokes and see that Mrs Millie is silly like a fox, go to the
head of the glass."
