Im not Invited

Title: "I'm Not Invited"

Author: Diana Cain Bluethenthal

Illustrated by: Diana Cain Bluthenthal 

Reading level: Ages 9-12 

Paperback: 32 pages 

Publisher: Aladdin (January 28, 2008) 

Language: English 

ISBN-10: 1416971416

This story is about a little girl named Minnie. She has a best friend named Charles, but if there best friend why is Charles not inviting Minnie to his birthday party on Saturday? At first Minnie feels that he must of forgot to invite her or he thought he initiated her and really did not. Through out the week Minnie is a wreck. She can stop thinking about Charles birthday party and why she would not of been invited. She never got an invitation, no party, no cakes, no nothing. How could he forget to invite her? Her family tries to figure out what is wrong out with but they just can't seem to help her. Saturday Minnie gets a call from her friends and they ask her if she wants to meet at the park to play kickball, Minnie heads over to the park and as she heads to the field she sees Charles. Why is he here, shouldn't he be at his party? Charles runs up to Minnie and she asks him about the party. Charles laughs and tells Minnie that they party was for his little sister, and that is the last place he wants to be. This story is great because it deals with a feeling that everyone has had before. The feeling of being left out, hurt, and unhappy, we all have been through it and this book does a good job of dealing with it. The pictures help make the story a good one, they build on the text. You can really feel the emotion that Minnie is having. When she is sad you feel sad for her and when she is happy you feel happy for her. The author wrote this story because she wanted to show others what it feels like to be left out and how when someone is left out how we should comfort them. The while characters and the color characters are seen as the same, no one is placed higher or lower then anyone. That is another reason why this book is good, because it includes other ethnic groups. The literacy elements that I found in the story are allegory and foreshadowing. The allegory in the story is seen through out the story, we are learning that Minnie is unset that she was not invited to the party but at the end of the story we learn that the party was not for her friend Charles but for his sister. The story is helping us better understand that some times people feel left out and we need to learn the right way to deal with it. The foreshadowing is seen in the story as well. The pictures are what give us a hint for what is coming next. The images build on the text, which helps us better understand how the characters are feeling. The pictures in the story are simple they do not have much color and they do not hold much detail, but they make the story great. You can really feel the way Minnie is feeling and I believe that makes a picture book great. Having simple pictures that can really impact you. The mini-lesson I would want to use this book for would be to teach my class about the feeling of being left out. Everyone has a time when they felt left out so reminding the class what it feels like and way they can make sure it wont happen in our classroom. This book would help children learn to include all their friends.