It's My Birthday [Hardcover]

Helen Oxenbury (Author, Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1994 | Age Level: 2 and up

In a brightly illustrated cumulative tale, an ever-growing group of friends helps a small child gather the ingredients for a delicious birthday cake.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Oxenbury brings her considerable talents to bear on this slender but winsome picture book. "It's my birthday and I'm going to make a cake," announces a child, and one by one a host of animal friends offer their contributions--an egg from the chicken, flour from the bear, salt from the pig and so on. Perfectly paced, the story celebrates friendship and ends, naturally, with a party. Like the casts of Else Holmelund Minarik's classic tales, the animals are gently anthropomorphized, and the affection they display toward one another underscores the story's theme. Oxenbury deliberately leaves the child's gender ambiguous, making it all that much easier for every reader to identify with her character. As always, her understated watercolors are filled with whimsy--from a picnicking otter family that lends salt to the pig to a bespectacled sheep at the market cash register--and they shine with the quiet resplendence of happy family life. Ages 2-up.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

PreSchool-K-Wanting to make a birthday cake, a youngster asks various animals to provide the ingredients, and they do. A chicken supplies the eggs; a bear, the flour; a cat, the butter and milk; a pig, the salt; a dog, the sugar; and a monkey, cherries for the top. The creatures then help the child make the cake, and help eat it, too. This is a wonderfully simple story. The soft watercolor illustrations are warm and gently humorous, particularly the depictions of the endearing animals, who stand on two legs and are just as childlike as their human friend. The preschooler's gender is nonspecific, which gives all children the opportunity to identify with the main character. A charming addition to preschool story times.
Elaine Lesh Morgan, Multnomah County Library, Portland, OR
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 2 and up
  
• Hardcover: 24 pages
• Publisher: Candlewick (August 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564024121
• ISBN-13: 978-1564024121
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 7.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,657,716 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful and rare, gender-neutral picture book, November 14, 1999

By 

J. Byrne (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: It's My Birthday (Hardcover)

It's interesting that some reviewers identify the child as aboy, when the author has in fact written and illustratied this storyto be gender-neutral. The child (and animals, for that matter) can be either male or female -- and that was the author's intention, as described in a note in the book. When the main characters in so many children's books are male for no reason other than the fact that Male is the default gender in our world, how nice for girls to be able to see themselves in the main character of this story (and how nice for parents to not have to change names and pronouns to provide a more balanced perspective when reading to our children).

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Book!, February 21, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: It's My Birthday (Paperback)

It is funny that the description of this book online says the main character is a boy, when in fact the author leaves the gender to be decided by the reader. My children (3 boys & 1 girl) love this book, and no one ever says anything about boy or girl. We have given this book many times as a birthday gift and have always had rave reviews for it. Highly reccommed for every house with children!

2.0 out of 5 stars Another children's book with poor English, January 2, 2012

By 

Lynn "lynnmp" - See all my reviews

This review is from: It's My Birthday (Paperback)

This book has beautiful illustrations. The story is simple, few words on a page and repetitive - perfect for little readers. Unfortunately, it's another children's book written with poor English. Each page repeats the phrase, "I've got". The phrase is widely used in speech, but I expect better in my books.