And Amanda keeps reliving the same day, including being startled awake by a giant Sponge Bob Square Pants balloon. Now they’re turning 11 – a mysterious old woman named Angelina keeps turning up. In this first book in the series, we meet Amanda and Leo, who were best friends, even celebrating their birthday together, until a horrible event that happened at their tenth birthday party. This is fun, contemporary fiction with a fantasy touch that varies from nearly undetectable to large from book to book.Įleven Birthdays by Wendy Mass. Especially if you meet her around your birthday… Oh, and be careful if you run into an old woman with a duck-shaped birthmark on her face. Everything is pretty normal here, except that children really never have to go to the hospital after they’re born. My thanks to the publisher for a copy of the book in exchange for my unbiased review.Welcome to Willow Falls, a small all-American town. The book is completely suitable for its target age range and a refreshingly light read while remaining interesting.

She’s an incredibly likable pre-teen and she handles the many misadventures that come with turning twelve like someone much older-but not in an unrealistic way. Read this book to hang out with Rory and her friends. Unfortunately there are hints of magical realism that fall flat-especially at the end-and that lowered the number of stars I give it to four. Mass’s book reminds me a bit of Judy Blume’s offerings for this age group. Rory’s parents offer a fine balance between strict and understanding, and her three-year-old brother, Sawyer, offers some excellent comic moments through the course of the book. Along the way, Rory helps others achieve their dreams too, and she does it with such subtlety that there’s a great lesson for readers within the pages of the book without feeling hit over the head with it. Rory plunges into achieving those dreams with reckless abandon that leaves her a bit batter, bruised, and hopped up on caffeine-all while being paid to be an extra in the teen movie being filmed at her school.

Rory is a wonderful character and her big dreams may seem small to some, but when you’ve been waiting FOREVER for a cell phone, a pet, and to be left alone in the house (just to name a few of her wishes), they seem like the key to happiness. Rory Swenson has been keeping a list of things she'll be allowed to do once she turns twelve, and although she's sure her parents have forgotten a lot of the things they've promised over the years, she has the documentation to prove that they agreed to a variety of things.

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