You Have to Be Nice to Someone on Their Birthday (review)

Poor Rosemary: she's expecting a delightful birthday, but instead her family is overtaken by "horrible, out-of-town cousins" and her mother doesn't make her special birthday breakfast. Once at school, things go further downhill, to which Rosemary responds unhelpfully ("Rosemary made ugly drawings and gave them away, making some children very upset"), but eventually she and her teacher bond over their shared rotten birthday. The next day, though, Rosemary is awakened to a birthday celebration, and she realizes she's misunderstood an important calendar fact: just because her birthday was on Tuesday the previous year does not mean it's on Tuesday this year. The text is a little lengthy and the set up is fairly contrived (kids with that level of day-of-the-week recall will be able to grasp the circled date on the calendar). Nonetheless, the wry, understated humor and sympathetically martyred heroine will win young audiences, who will be right on Rosemary's wavelength when it comes to the rules of engagement for birthdays. The watercolor and pencil illustrations are somewhat overbusy in their multiplicity of objects and hues in each scene, but the result is entertainingly chaotic, and the strong and humorous drafting makes Rosemary a sturdy and lively figure. Though most kids aren't likely to have made this fictional mistake, they'll fully understand the horror of such a day's being ignored, and they'll be glad to see Rosemary get her celebration.