11 Birthdays: 05/24/22

11 Birthdays by Wendy Mass is the start of the Willow Falls series of middle grade books. Amanda and Leo's families have been tied together by a long forgotten curse that was reactivated when the two happened to be born on the same day. Now on their 11th birthday the curse is in full swing, forcing them to relive the day.

While the blurb compares the book to Groundhog Day (1993) and Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen (2001), I am more reminded of Holes by Louis Sachar (1998) and the more recent One Way or Another by Kara McDowell (2020).

Although the curse affects both Amanda and Leo, the entire novel is from Amanda's point of view. If this novel were following a more typical Groundhog Day format, the path to solving Amanda and Leo's problem would be to fix the problems of those around them. While they try that in some attempts it becomes clear that fixing everyone else's problems isn't their solution. And that makes the book interesting.

Amanda and Leo's journey through the curse places this novel on the Road Narrative Spectrum. As they are traveling together and are best friends with an interest in being more than just BFFs someday, they are a couple (33). As they are repeating the same day and are forced to do so because of events decades earlier, their destination is uhoria (CC). Their route is tied to their city's agrarian past, and thus is through the cornfield (FF).

The second book in the series is Finally (2010).

Five stars

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