I’m Very Busy

I’m Very Busy: A (Nearly Forgotten) Birthday Book

Oliver Jeffers

HarperCollins GB, 2025

32pp., hbk.,  RRP $A24.99

9780008771911

Bridget thought it was going to be a lovely day to spend with friends but it seems all her friends are busy.  Each one seems to have something more important to do than spend time with Bridget – Royal has “people to see and places to be”; Rodney has “to see a man about a dog”; Regis is washing his hair;  Penelope was eyeball-dep in a hole she was digging; and even Pearl had a list of things to write and then cross off.

Sometimes, in fact often these days, it seems that our lives are so busy that there are never enough hours in the day and it is the catch-ups with friends that seem to be the first casualties.  And so it seems for Bridget who doesn’t remind her friends that it is actually her birthday  – and even though the reader hopes that her friends’ excuses are just covering up for a surprise they have in store, particularly as Regis is has no hair to wash and there is no dog on the end of the lead Rodney is holding,  it appears that they truly have forgotten.  It seems like it is going to be a lonely day for Bridget until…

Presented in the signature style that we associate with the award-winning Jeffers,  with each child depicted in their own gentle, pastel shade suggesting that there will be a soft landing at the end, this is a reminder of the importance of friendship and sharing fun times rather than making somewhat weak (and common) excuses. It offers an opportunity to consider how Bridget is feeling as she is rejected by each of the others and her stoicism as she prepares to have a party with her toys, regardless.  There will be those in the class who have felt just as abandoned at times, but who don’t have Bridget’s resilience and start to turn the rejection inwardly.

Jeffers has a capacity for taking an ordinary, everyday event and creating something that is not only an engaging story but one that makes the reader think more deeply… How would we feel if we were Bridget?  Should she have reminded her friends about her birthday? Are they even really the friends they say they are?  Or are they just there for the cake?  Is there a friend they haven’t checked in with for a while?