Isadora Moon Has a Birthday

Isadora Moon Has a Birthday by Harriet Muncaster is a party story for 5 year olds where nothing goes quite the way the human guests expect.

What happens

Isadora is half fairy and half vampire. She's been invited to lots of her school friends' birthday parties, and this year she wants one just like theirs. No vampire party in the dead of night. No chilly fairy swim in a forest stream.

Her parents agree to try. They even write a list of everything she's described. Hot potato, a magician, cake, balloons, a bouncy castle, costumes and party bags.

The trouble is, they've never actually been to a human party!

So the invitations flap into her classroom on bat wings (in the middle of maths). Pass the parcel ends in fireworks. And the magician is her bossy cousin Wilbur, who can do real magic, just not very well. Poor Bruno gets turned into a box of frogs.

Then there's the bouncy castle. Mum lassoes a fluffy cloud out of the sky and pegs it to the lawn. You can probably guess what happens when Wilbur decides it needs to be bouncier...

Isadora tells the story herself, and she's lovely company. She adores her family and she's also a bit embarrassed by them. Who hasn't felt that at the school gate? If your reader has ever worried their friends might think their family is weird, this one says it gently and warmly. Different is good.

There's also a nice moment for shy Samantha, who turns out to be the one with the clever idea when it matters most. And the costumes everyone wears matter far more than anyone expects.

The excitement is all the fun kind. There's a scary moment high in the sky, but it's short, and the grown-ups are never far away.

What to read next

If they love Isadora's family chaos, try Isadora Moon Gets in Trouble next. This time it's cousin Mirabelle who comes to stay, and her shrinking powder turns a dollhouse game into something MUCH bigger.