Esme’s Birthday Conga Line

Reviewed By  Janet Mawdesley       May 10, 2022

 

Author  Lourdes Heuer. Illustrations Marissa Valdez.

Distributor:      Penguin Random House
ISBN:                 9780735269408
Publisher:         Penguin Random House. Imprint Tundra Books
Release Date:   May 2022  

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Its Esme’s birthday and she is so excited. She lives on the top floor of a very tall building. She also lives with her Grandparents Mimi and Pipo. They have given her a gift but they have forgotten one little thing, there’s no birthday party been planned. No cake, no piñata, no balloons or streamers. Oh dear! What can she do.

El Tom her cat, helps Esme plan a very special birthday party and together they decided to invite everyone who lives on the many floors of their apartment block, until they get to the top floor where Esme and her grandparent live.

On each floor live people who love to do things; some like to cook, others like to make things out of paper and then others can play music on their guitar, which is very good, as Esme’s gift from her Mimi and Pipo was a guitar, which she cannot play! She makes music sound terrible!

Esme’s Birthday Conga Line is a wonderful chapter book which will have wide appeal to children who love a good story and really get making the most out of very little when the need arises.  It is full of fun, initiative, problem solving and absolute pleasure when things eventually work out just as Esme planned it; with a little or a lot of help from her friends.

Marissa Valdez, with her trendy illustrations captures the spirit of the little girl who recruits her neighbours to help her celebrate, as she realises that her Grandparents have simply forgotten what it is like to have a small person living with them once again, especially when it is birthday time.