I Wish You A Happy Birthday - Michael Wong - ★★.½

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AUTHOR: Michael Wong
ILLUSTRATOR: Eugene Smolenceva
GENRE: Children's Picture Book
RATING: 2.5 stars

In a Nutshell: Bit of a misleading title. Most of the book is not about the birthday but about how much the child is loved and treasured. Gets a tad too cheesy. Outstanding illustrations though.


Because I loved this author’s ‘I Will Always Be Proud of You’, I decided to try this book, even though his second book, ‘I Will Always Love You’, left me with mixed feelings. Unfortunately, this one also is a mixed bag, albeit for very different reasons.

The book is written in first person, and is addressed by the adult narrator to the child whose birthday is soon coming up. The text is in simple rhythmic prose, in the classic ABCB rhyming pattern. Thus, reading this book aloud works well because of the balanced meter.

However, the content is not like what I had expected. I thought the birthday will be the focal point, and that the entire writing would revolve around the special day and what it might bring. But the birthday is actually the climax of the book. Until then, what we get is hopeful thinking about the child’s future and love-filled affirmations towards the child. This would have been great, had the lines not been so cheesy. I think it went a bit overboard on the "my love" factor, with some of the lines sounding more romantic than parental because of the word choices.

My main problem is that the lines and sentiments are very similar to the content of Book Two. Only the ending is different. This creates a lot of déjà vu when you read the books one after the other. There shouldn’t be so much of redundancy between two standalone books of the same series.

The illustrations are mind-blowing – no surprises here. To be honest, the main reason I pick up the picture books by this author is the outstanding illustrations. Every page is filled with joy! The sketches are inclusive in most ways, except that fat rep is missing yet again, with all the human characters being thin.

There are five famous people incorporated within the illustrations. But as their sketches are based on when they were younger, it's impossible to recognise them. (What made it even tougher for me was that I hadn’t even heard of any except one of the famous people.) The final section of the book reveals the names and achievements of these people.

There are also some special dogs in the illustrations, with their breeds specified at the end. These are really cute, as dogs always are!

Overall, a decent book but with restricted appeal as it works best only as a birthday gift. Then again, the title does hint at this factor. I just wish the book had more individuality rather than being a rehash of the second book.

My thanks to Picco Puppy and Edelweiss+ for the DRC of “I Wish You A Happy Birthday”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

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