In a book exceptionally modest in manner and unusually substantial in matter, Mrs. Paley has given a vivid and credible picture of how five-year-olds think. An entertaining picture, too, and a strangely inspiriting one.
   --D. J. Enright, Times Literary Supplement

[These] are the reflections of an expert, sensitive, experienced "kid-watcher," who believes that the children's magical thinking provides a legitimate framework within which more adult-like thinking can develop...Wally's Stories does not simply 'instruct'; it also unfailingly delights.
   --Judith Lindfors, Language Arts

This remarkable book is delightful to read and rewarding to ponder. It is the kind of book a teacher quotes to friends, shares with colleagues, and uses as a source of working ideas and inspiration.
   --Alice Seletsky, Elementary School Journal

Paley's anecdotal record of a kindergarten class is a reflective examination of how five-year-olds think and of how one child's well-developed imagination can catalyze a class...She has fresh insights to offer from this particular arena as she reminds us that magic gives children power in a world where adults seem to have the answers. A trenchant informal analysis.
   --Kirkus Reviews

Vivian Gussin Paley, a former kindergarten teacher, is the winner of a MacArthur Award and of the 1998 American Book Award for Lifetime Achievement given by the Before Columbus Foundation.

Read More by Vivian Gussin Paley:

• The Kindness of Children
• The Girl with the Brown Crayon
• The Boy Who Would Be a Helicopter
• Kwanzaa and Me: A Teacher's Story
• You Can't Say You Can't Play
• White Teacher, Second Edition, With a New Preface
• In Mrs. Tully's Room: A Childcare Portrait