Children’s Book Review: Millie Fierce

Millie is quiet. Millie is sweet. Millie is mild. But the kids at school don’t listen to her. And she never gets a piece of birthday cake with a flower on it. And some girls from her class walk right on top of her chalk drawing and smudge it. And they don’t even say they’re sorry!

So that’s when Millie decides she wants to be fierce! She frizzes out her hair, sharpens her nails and runs around like a wild thing. But she soon realizes that being fierce isn’t the best way to get noticed either, especially when it makes you turn mean. So Millie decides to be nice–but to keep a little of that fierce backbone hidden inside her. In case she ever needs it again.

With bright art and an adorable character, it’s easy to empathize with Millie. Because everyone has a bad day, once in a while.

My Thoughts:

This book has some really powerful messages. One thing that stood out to me is what I found to be true with children. If you do not give them attention, they start to do the things that gain your attention even if it’s mean and unwanted behavior. In a sense this book also gave me insight into the mind of a bully. I appreciate that Millie was able to see how her actions were hurtful to another child, which motivated her to apologize, do good deeds, and save her ferocity for pretend play. With that being said, I think a few discussion prompts in the back of the book would have worked well.

The illustrations are visually appealing and my daughter, after we read it for the first time, asked me to read it again (and that’s pretty rare). We look forward to seeing more of Millie! Perhaps the sequels can touch on other emotions.

For more info about Millie Fierce, author, and illustrator, visit the website. You can also view the opinions of other bloggers on this tour.

Disclosure: I was provided a free copy to facilitate my review. All opinions are my own!