When's My Birthday?

by Julie Fogliano, Christian Robinson (Illustrator)

Overview

In this enthusiastic celebration of all things BIRTHDAY, acclaimed author Julie Fogliano and award-winning illustrator Christian Robinson bring you the perfect birthday book! Join our excited narrator as she lists all the things that will make her birthday the BEST birthday.

when’s my birthday?

where’s my birthday?

how many days until my birthday?

i’d like a pony for my birthday and a necklace for my birthday.

i’d like a chicken for my birthday.

i’d like a ball to bounce and bounce.

i’d like a big cake on my birthday with lots of chocolate on my birthday and lots of candles on my birthday

1,2,3,4,5, and 6!

2018 Boston Globe-Horn Book Picture Book Honor Award

When's My Birthday? is a School Library Journal Best Book of 2017, a Horn Book Fanfare Best Book of 2017, a Kirkus Reviews Best Picture Book of 2017, an NPR Best Book of 2017, a Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2017, and a 2018 ALSC Notable Children's Book.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781626722934
Publisher:	Roaring Brook Press
Publication date:	09/05/2017
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	1,005,101
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 11.10(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	AD260L (what's this?)
Age Range:	3 - 6 Years

About the Author

Julie Fogliano has spent her entire life reading children's books. Now she stays up way too late writing her own books while eating cereal. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband and their three children. They make her very tired, but give her lots of good ideas. So far she has authored And Then It’s Spring, for which she won the Ezra Jack Keats Award, If You Want to See a Whale, When Green Becomes Tomatoes, recipient of four starred reviews, and Old Dog Baby Baby with art by Chris Raschka.

Christian Robinson's award-winning books for young readers include Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker, which was a Coretta Scott King Honor Book as well as a Sibert Honor Book, and Harlem's Little Blackbird, which was an NAACP Image Award nominee. His Newbery Medal and Caldecott Honor book Last Stop on Market Street was a New York Times bestseller, and School's First Day of School (written by Adam Rex), has earned seven starred reviews. When's My Birthday? is his second book for Roaring Brook Press.

Editorial Reviews

★ 07/03/2017
Birthdays are hard to wait for, but now there’s a book to read while counting down the days. Fogliano (Old Dog Baby Baby) starts with a stomping beat (“When’s my birthday?/ where’s my birthday?/ how many days until my birthday?”) and understands that, for young birthday hopefuls, excitement means movement: “Will we dance around and round?/ will we jump and jump and jump?” Using simple cutout forms, Caldecott Honor artist Robinson (Last Stop on Market Street) shows children with varied hair and skin colors indulging in birthday fantasies. One skates on a gigantic cake (would that be icing skating?), another contemplates an enormous gift, still another surveys a table laden with food. Robinson’s collages play with scale, contrasting giant birthday props with a spread of insects and a snail celebrating the occasion atop a dandelion—every living thing has a birthday. As the special day approaches, one child vows to stay up all night: “In the morning it’s my birthday!/ I’m not sleeping till my birthday.” (She falls asleep, of course.) Fogliano captures with uncanny skill a child’s voice, enthusiasm, and spontaneity. Ages 3–6. Agent: Steven Malk, Writers House. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

* "Buoyant and perfectly childlike, meant to be read aloud with gusto and a keen sense of urgency."—School Library Journal, starred review

*"A gift of a picture book that's at once nostalgic and fresh."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

*"There might be a more perfect picture book about birthdays out there, but you’d be hard-pressed to find it."—Booklist, starred review

“With playful illustrations and text that bounces like a bouquet of balloons, if you were to blow out your candles and wish for a perfect birthday book, this is what you'd get.” —NPR

From the Publisher

★ 07/01/2017
PreS-Gr 1—An exuberant ode to children's anticipation for the most special day each year: their birthday. Fogliano's insistent verse wastes no time and doesn't even stop for traditional capitalization—just like the young narrators, who want to know, "when's my birthday?/where's my birthday?/how many days until/my birthday?" They continue breathlessly, wondering if they will "sing so happy happy?" on the big day. The exaggerated excitement is echoed in Robinson's clever use of scale, as in a spread featuring a gigantic present tied with white twine. A little girl reaches up to pull the string, dwarfed by its size. The long and tall trim size is also ideal for displaying a towering, swimming pool—size birthday cake so large that the young birthday boy needs a ladder to reach the candles. A muted palette of slate blue, mustard yellow, forest green, and burnt sienna, sometimes appearing on a rich black background, reflects the festive tone of the text without tipping over into what could be—in the hands of a less skilled poet and artist—overwhelming or obnoxious in its fervor. Instead, readers will appreciate and immediately recognize the joyful expectancy. VERDICT Buoyant and perfectly childlike, meant to be read aloud with gusto and a keen sense of urgency. A first purchase for any library, and a ready-made gift for home collections.—Kiera Parrott, School Library Journal

School Library Journal

★ 2017-06-27
A picture book to celebrate.Fogliano is at her best here, with text reminiscent of Charlotte Zolotow's, Margaret Wise Brown's, and Ruth Krauss' writing. Her spare, singsong verse pairs perfectly with Robinson's naïve style expressed in joyful, retro, multimedia collage. The striking, narrow portrait layout recalls Marc Simont's Caldecott-winning A Tree Is Nice, but this picture book is much more than nice. It's splendid. Illustrations feature an ever shifting multiracial cast of children, not to mention cakes, balloons, wrapped gifts, and markers of changing seasons, to accompany and expand upon the text. Whimsical details, such as the inclusion of a giraffe and a sloth as party guests in the illustrations, add levity and surprise. The repeated refrain—"when's my birthday? / where's my birthday? / how many days until / my birthday?"—lends cohesion to the book despite the lack of a linear textual narrative. One little girl with straight black hair, olive skin, and large dark eyes (who looks a bit like Robinson's protagonist from The Smallest Girl in the Smallest Grade, written by Justin Roberts, 2014) appears multiple times, signaling that she is the one anticipating her birthday. The antepenultimate spread shows her losing a fight against sleep as she waits for her birthday to arrive the next morning, and the closing page turns when the big day arrives are "happy happy!" indeed. A gift of a picture book that's at once nostalgic and fresh. (Picture book. 2-6)

Kirkus Reviews