Birthday Boy

David Baddiel's Birthday Boy is a funny story for 9 year olds about a boy who gets his birthday wish granted rather too well.

What happens

Sam Green loves his birthday. Not in a normal way. In a way where his dad asks what he'd like for dinner and Sam answers with a list of presents (his little sister Ruby was trying to say shepherd's pie).

His eleventh is everything he hoped for. A cake shaped like the Starship Enterprise with gobstoppers for planets. A fancy dress party where everyone came as a film character. A telescope from his mum and dad, who haven't got much money and got him one anyway.

Then the day ends. That's the bit Sam can't stand.

So at nearly midnight he's still up, pointing his new telescope out of the seventeenth-floor window, when an enormous shooting star tears across the sky. His mum had told him earlier that you should wish on one.

You can probably guess what he wishes for.

Next morning his whole family are at his door with a full English breakfast, a doughnut and eleven candles. Happy birthday, Sam. Again.

What makes it so funny is the guinea pig. Sam has named him Spock, and the story keeps stopping to tell you what Spock's face is saying. Usually it's something withering about parsley, or about escaping back to Peru. He does NOT enjoy being balanced on Sam's head during skateboard tricks.

Ruby is very good value too. She's seven, she says "actually" a lot, and she'd like everyone to know that the nearest planet capable of sustaining life is four light years away. She would also like a kitten. She brings this up constantly.

If you've got a child who counts down to their birthday for about six weeks beforehand, they'll recognise Sam completely. The waking-up bit. The knowing-it's-today bit. Baddiel is very good on why that feeling matters so much when you're eleven and why grown-ups have quietly stopped having it.

It's warm about the parents, which is nice. They can't afford the iPod. They stretched for the telescope. Sam notices both.

What to read next

If this one goes down well, there's The Parent Agency. Barry Bennett has a list of everything he blames his mum and dad for, and he ends up somewhere children get to pick their parents instead.