Birthday Presents

An almost six-year-old girl listens as her mother and father describe her six previous birthday celebrations.

PreSchool-Grade 2 In this joyous celebration of family love, a little girl is told about each of her birthdays from the moment of her birth until she is six. Stevenson's illustrations begin with an uncluttered view of mother, father, and newborn baby. From then on, Rylant's understated text and Stevenson's double-page spreads show the three engaging in birthday activities. Both text and illustrations vividly capture the tears, trials, joys, and jubilations of childhoodstar cakes, clown cakes, and robot cakes; flu, stomachaches, and frustrations. Stevenson's vibrant illustrations depict a loving home filled with the clutter of an active child. Many of the illustrations are framed like snapshots in a family album, and the candid shots perfectly capture the expressions of children at parties who don't want to share, faces smeared with chocolate, and tantrums. Family history and memories combine in this book that's a work of love, a true presentand one that should cause children to clammer for stories of their past birthdays. Trev Jones, ``School Library Journal''
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

On the first five birthdays of one small girl, five different cakes are bakedstar cake, clown, train, robot and dinosaur cakes, respectively. There are also demands for presents, and questions as to who and how many guests should attend. The language and concepts used on these occasions reflect the world of the one-to-five-year-old setexpressions like "counting little piggies," "sucking fingers," "spitting up," "chocolate faces" (the result of enjoying cake until it's smeared from here to there), naps, crabbiness and stomachaches. Before her sixth birthday, the small girl has learned to offer her parents gifts on their birthdays. A celebration of love, this book is as delicious as a "chocolate face" and just as funny. Stevenson's baby/toddler/little girl is joyful and charismatic, with puffed, rosy cheeks, acrobatic postures that only babies perform, thoroughly engrossed in various activities like playing, baking and drawing. Ages 4-6.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.