Isabel's birthday surprise was a fantastic read. It incorporated both American and Spanish traditions. I know my students would enjoy learning how other cultures celebrate birthdays and holidays.

Thank you so much to Magination Press and Netgalley for the ebook to read and review.

It’s Isobel’s birthday and she has one wish to have a party with a piñata and a cake, but she soon finds out that it won’t be possible. She goes through the whole day realising everything was getting worse until she could hold her emotions in no more.

What a precious story, Isabel was so adorable she just had one big dream for her birthday. It was hard for her going through the day knowing that she wouldn’t get anything she dreamt of when she went home. She just got sadder and sadder which was so hard to read and see, especially when it’s her birthday.

I loved the illustrations they were really beautiful to look at, I also loved that though she didn’t notice anything, when you look at the pictures everyone in her family were doing things in secret for her, she just didn’t notice but as a reader you do.

This is a wonderful story on emotions, on how wonderful a family and community can be, on how things in life don’t always work out how you dreamt them to be. It’s a wonderful read and beautiful to look at. It also has so much extra information at the end which I love that inclusion to help further teach a reader or help guide them through a tough patch.

This is a great little book a wonderful lesson to learn and a surprise at the end. Lovely illustrations.

This is quite a sad book about disappointments on a child's birthday. I enjoyed the illustrations and the bilingual aspect of the book. Unfortunately, this was too sad for my child to enjoy.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this ebook in exchange for my honest review.

I couldn't help but feel sorry for the little girl in this story. It’s her birthday, yet she heads to school unsure if she’ll even get a celebration. Her day feels off—full of disappointment and sad emotions. While the unexpected surprise later is heartwarming, I still felt for her. She didn’t deserve to spend most of her special day feeling uncertain and let down. A little reassurance from her mom in the morning could have made all the difference.

I absolutely loved the art in this book and the tenderness between characters. However, the main part of the story disappointed me. The back cover copy and back matter discuss how to deal with disappointment when life doesn’t measure up to expectations, but I didn’t really see how Isabel’s experience actually demonstrated that. We follow her over the course of her birthday where she encounters let-down after let-down, and while she understandably gets upset, we never sit with her as she processes her emotions or finds a different perspective. Instead, everything is fixed at the end of the day by granting Isabel exactly what she wished for, which also kind of irked me because I dislike the trope where people lie to someone about their birthday and pretend not to care only to plan a surprise party. The surprise party is nice, but the entire day in which Isabel believed her family didn’t care about her preferences was not as nice. At the end of the day, this could be a really sweet book for the right reader, but I was hoping for something more based on the description of the book.