The Birthday Invitation

Lucy Rowland

Laura Hughes

Bloomsbury, 2017

32pp., pbk., RRP $A12.99

9781408862995

Tomorrow is a very special day for Ella -it’s her birthday party.  She finishes writing the invitations and hurries through the woods to deliver them to her friends.  But she is so excited she doesn’t realise she has dropped one and that it is picked up by a wizard.  And so begins a remarkable journey for the invitation, one that means Ella is going to have the best celebration ever! Wizards, pirates, a princess and all sorts of interesting guests turn up – and each has a tale to tell about how they got there!

Written in rhyme which keeps the pace and action moving at a fast clip, this is a charming story that will engage and delight.  Laura Hughes’s bright detailed illustrations are sheer pleasure and the invitation almost comes to life leaving the reader to wonder where it will land next.  

As well as engaging young readers in its fun and light-heartedness, it’s also a great vehicle for focusing on sequencing and mapping the story.  Positional words such as first, next, after can be explored as a map of the invitation’s journey is constructed.  And for those who feel they have to, there is also an opportunity to investigate rhyming patterns as many of the couplets end with words with the same sound but a different spelling pattern.But I think the children will have much more fun thinking of the unique gifts that each character might give Ella for her birthday.