The Best Birthday Party Ever by J. LaRue Huget
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.20361/G29G6JAbstract
Huget, Jennifer LaRue. The Best Birthday Party Ever. Illus. LeUyen Pham. New York: Schwartz & Wade Books, 2011. Print.
“My birthday is 5 months, 3 weeks, 2 days, and 8 hours away. Today I started to plan my party.”
And so the planning begins for the 5-year-old soon-to-be birthday girl in this charming picture book. She has to start planning early if she wants the best birthday party ever. She is going to invite all 57 of her friends including the mailman and the invitations will be sprinkled with fairy dust. She will have 9 thousand balloons, streamers and napkins: all in pink. On the menu is a 17-layer cake, each layer a different flavour, with 6 zillion candles on top. Not only will there be: a magician, camel rides and a Ferris wheel, but each lucky guest will receive a hamster as a party favour.
In a kid-friendly countdown style towards the big day, our sweet party planner gets more and more excited as her birthday approaches and the plans get more and more grandiose. Only after her mother comments that this birthday party is “getting out of hand” does she agree to skip the sparkly necklaces. The day finally arrives and while it may not be the party she dreamed of, she is appreciative and enjoys her day so much that she immediately begins plans for her next birthday.
This beautifully illustrated read-aloud captures the excitement of a child as she looks forward to her special day and will appeal to lower elementary grades as well as preschoolers. The whimsical mostly-pink drawings may be initially off-putting to boys but they are certain to relate and enjoy the story.
Highly recommended: 4 out of 4 stars
Reviewer: Debbie Feisst
Debbie is a Public Services Librarian at the H.T. Coutts Education Library at the University of Alberta. When not renovating, she enjoys travel, fitness and young adult fiction.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
