Review Detail

Matthew's Birthday Party

Kids Indie 182

I wish I were ...

August 08, 2024

Overall rating

4.0

Plot

4.0

Characters

4.0

Writing Style

4.0

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

4.0

A father and child are on their way to a birthday party, and the child has some inquisitive questions. How would we get to the party if we were cats? The father replies that they would climb a tree and try to highjack an owl to fly them there. The two then explore the different ways they would get to the party if they were frogs, magpies, rhinoceroses, ghosts, witches, or aliens! Most are very silly, unless you live in a neighborhood where rhinos have their own skate lanes! There is a lot of good imagination at play, and the illustrations show the pair as whatever creatures they are imagining at the moment. As the two approach Matthew's apartment, they are depicted as a daughter with her hipster father (the boots and red skinny jeans are not of my generation!), but a clever fold out page shows all of the creatures they imagined following along behind them.

Good Points

Long walks with small children are the best, and I'd love to see parents and children play more imaginative games, pay attention to details, or tell silly stories! I love the idea of thinking about how different animals might get to a birthday party; would magpies really get on a bus? Would witches travel through storm clouds? This would be a great conversation starter on a walk to school. How would we travel if we were puppies? Flamingoes? Opera singers? Much scope for the imagination here.

The daughter always loooks like a miniature version of the father, no matter what incarnation the pair assume, which is charming. The illustrations are very clear and uncluttered, with a distinctive style that I enjoyed. My favorite pages were probably the ones with the aliens, where the others that the duo meet on the street also take alien form. I do sort of wish that the cover, and the very first scene, showed the father and daughter as they really were instead of cats. When the cat daughter asked how they would travel is they were cats, I was temporarily confused.

Anyone who spends time with small people needs lots of books to read, and lots of ideas for how to constuctively pass time. As someone who told countless hours of stories about squirrels in our neighborhood named Kelly and Freddy, I know I would have put this imaginative commuting idea into a steady rotation on our walks to school. Use this along with other books that foster imagination, like Sheban and Yolen's What to Do with a Box, Matsuoka's When I Was a Dinosaur, and Portis' Not a Stick to expand the creative repertoire of a young person in your life.