43 pages • 1 hour read
Wendy Mass11 Birthdays: A Wish Novel
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “11 Years Ago—Willow Falls Birthday Center”
In a hospital in Willow Falls, a fictional American town, two babies are born on the same day. The respective parents of Leo and Amanda gather around the glass-enclosed nursery to look at their babies. An old woman, Angelina D’Angelo, who has lived in Willow Falls for as long as anyone can remember, unexpectedly arrives and tells the bemused parents that they should celebrate the children’s birthdays together every year. They agree, but fully expect to never see each other again.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Ten Years Ago—Mr. McAllister’s Magic Castle Birthday Party Palace”
There has been a double booking at the Birthday Party Palace. Mr. McAllister apologetically says that the families will have to share the space; Amanda’s mother is annoyed. They are shocked and amused when Leo’s family arrives. Leo and Amanda play; Leo hands Amanda his teddy.
Mr. McAllister winks at Angelina, who walks past the front window of the Birthday Palace.
Chapter 3 Summary: “The Evening Before Amanda and Leo’s 11th Birthday”
Amanda tries to land a back handspring before gymnastics tryouts the next day. Her best friend, Stephanie, helps, but Amanda cannot master the move. Amanda’s older sister, Kylie, does homework with Dustin, a boy from his class.
Amanda discusses the arrangements for her Hollywood-themed 11th birthday party the next day. Amanda is going to dress as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Her mom prepared the costume for her, but Amanda doesn’t like it.
Amanda is annoyed that her mother sent an invitation to Leo. She recalls the previous year, on her and Leo’s joint 10th birthday, where she overheard Leo saying to friends that he continues to have joint birthday parties with Amanda only because his mom makes him. Amanda ran home crying, threw all the evidence of their friendship (apart from the birthday photo album) out of her window, and hasn’t spoken to Leo since. This is the first year that they haven’t had a combined birthday. Amanda looks through her birthday photo album; all 10 previous photos show Amanda and Leo together at their birthday parties.
Chapter 4 Summary
Amanda wakes up on the morning of her birthday; she panics at the squat man in the middle of her bedroom, but realizes that it is a SpongeBob balloon that her parents put there for her birthday. Her father has a cold. Amanda and Kylie take the bus to school, but Amanda forgets her lunch. Stephanie gets on and, not seeing Amanda, sits with Ruby. Amanda feels excluded and upset. Stephanie assures her when they get off the bus that she would have sat with her if she had seen her. Amanda is touched to see that her locker has been decorated for her birthday. She sees a green tootsie roll—her favorite—lying near her locker and wonders if it is a gift; she decides to leave it.
There’s a pop quiz in history class; they have to stay after class and retake it if they don’t pass. Amanda passes the quiz but sees Leo put his head in his hands and assumes that he has failed.
She sits with twins Tracy and Emma, as well as Stephanie, at the cafeteria for lunch. The twins discuss Leo’s birthday party, which allegedly has a giant lizard and a rock band. Amanda, offended and upset, excuses herself. She passes groups of children discussing Leo’s party and a boy crying about a forgotten assignment. Amanda returns to the cafeteria, and her friends produce a cupcake with a candle and sing happy birthday for her. Amanda catches Leo’s eye, and he smiles at her.
Chapter 5 Summary
Amanda’s locker, which was jammed, opens easily. She goes to gymnastics tryouts. She sees Leo wiping red eyes as she passes and assumes he is suffering from allergies. In the locker room, Ruby asks if she’s excited about tryouts and tries to reassure Amanda by suggesting “other girls will freeze under pressure” (39). Amanda considers the fact that she doesn’t like Ruby.
Ruby and Stephanie make the team, but Amanda freezes up when she tries to do a back handspring. She is disappointed.
Stephanie’s mother drives Amanda home. Amanda’s dad is still sick, and he is coughing on the couch. He tells her that he hopes that she will still have a good birthday even though it will be a bit of a difficult birthday (referring to her conflict with Leo).
Chapter 6 Summary
Amanda reluctantly puts on her Dorothy outfit. She asks her mom if it’s too late to cancel the party. When Kylie agrees that the Dorothy costume is bad, Amanda feels worse. Eight of Amanda’s friends turn up, but many do not. Before long, they begin to leave; Stephanie explains that they are going to Leo’s party. She then asks if Amanda minds if she goes herself. Upset, Amanda says that Stephanie can leave. She is relieved when her friends leave so she can go to bed. Before she does, her mother tells her that she was fired from her job that day; she left an important presentation poster at home (she took Kylie’s science project by mistake). Before Amanda goes to bed, she puts the SpongeBob balloon in the closet.
Chapters 1-6 Analysis
The mysterious figure of Angelina introduces the concept of Magic and Fate. By suggesting that the two infants will be best friends and that they should celebrate their birthdays together, she establishes the enchantment that later ensnares them in a time loop on their 11th birthday. In Chapter 2, Angelina and Mr. McAllister share a wink. The gesture suggests she has intervened to double-book the Birthday Palace so the two children become friends and establish the shared birthday tradition.
Amanda’s birthday party photo album is a symbol of their friendship, which has endured through the years until their joint 10th birthday. The photos in the birthday party album, such as their 5th birthday at the Creative Kids Poetry Studio and their 9th birthday at the beach, represent their shared memories. Hurt and angry after hearing Leo talking to his friends, Amanda threw the painted pot out of her window and boxed up the other reminders of their friendship. The importance of the potted plant (which contains apple seeds from her and Leo’s ancestors) is as yet unknown to Amanda, but it will become linked to the mysterious enchantment. Amanda hoped packing away the items so she can’t see them will alleviate her sadness and anger. However, Amanda felt some remorse and residual affection for the relationship because she locked the album in a drawer and looks at it the night before her 11th birthday. Amanda misses Leo, but she isn’t sure how to repair the relationship. “After all, like Mom said, I’m only going to turn eleven once. I just wish I wasn’t doing it alone” (22). Amanda feels lonely celebrating without Leo.
Friendship, Rejection, and Fitting In is introduced as an important theme. Amanda is aware of the “coolness ladder” that exists at the school and feels sensitive to rejection after Leo’s comment from the year before. On Amanda’s 11th birthday, Stephanie’s choice to sit with Ruby on the school bus also feels like rejection.
Even though her locker was decorated and the girls she sits with at lunch bring her a cupcake, Amanda feels uncool and unwanted and looks for evidence to confirm her preconception. Amanda’s feelings of rejection and friendlessness are exacerbated when she doesn’t make the gymnastics team but Stephanie does: “she did so great […] then she’ll be friends with the popular girls and I won’t” (42). Amanda fears being left out and therefore feels uncomfortable with Stephanie’s friendship with girls such as Ruby.
Most of all, Amanda’s feelings of isolation and inadequacy are triggered by classmates’ talk of Leo’s 11th birthday party. She feels stressed and upset when she overhears people discussing it at school and interprets their excitement as rejection of her own birthday party: “I hear a group of girls talking about Leo’s party. Who’s going with who, who’s wearing what, what they got him as a gift” (35). Later that day, when Amanda sees Leo, holding a tissue and with red eyes, outside the guidance counselor’s office, she assumes he has allergies. Amanda’s feelings of loneliness and humiliation prevent her from seeing Leo’s distress; she assumes that Leo is popular and surrounded by friends. Later, Amanda learns that Leo is being bullied by Vinnie.
When Amanda’s friends, including Stephanie, leave Amanda’s party to go to Leo’s party, Amanda is left feeling lonely and humiliated. Amanda’s discomfort with her Dorothy costume mirrors her discomfort in her own skin as she thinks about her friends having more fun at Leo’s party. When she finally puts on her most comfortable pajamas and goes to bed, she also finds comfort knowing the next day is Saturday and she won’t have to see the friends who let her down. This reassuring thought is ironic as she must then relive the day 10 more times.
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By Wendy Mass
