Whether you are a reluctant birthday celebration planner (me) or a Pinterest party planner, there are a lot of ways you can incorporate books into birthdays. Kids love books and they tend to bring more long lasting joy than other similarly priced small items.
Photo by Robyn Budlender on Unsplash
Party Favors
Unfortunately the idea of the “goodie bag” is still alive and well at kids birthday parties. While there is nothing inherently wrong with a plastic bag filled with candy, stickers and small toys, it’s going to cost you a lot more than you probably want to pay for something that will probably get suspiciously hidden by the receiver’s parent within 24 hours. For the last two years we did a paperback book as a favor for my son’s 4th and 5th birthday party. To get the books at a reasonable price, I used my son’s preschool Scholastic Book Order. They typically have a couple of books each month that are only $1 each. I get a small selection of the $1 books, and then a few other of our family favorites that are also reasonably priced. Since our birthday parties (so far) have been made up of our friend’s kids basically, we have a wider age range than a classmates party. Usually it’s possible to get a wide range of ages and interests on Scholastic if you order online. Scholastic does take a little while to come, so you do have to plan ahead for this. Luckily, Amazon also has some cheap-ish paperbacks so that route could work as well. Last year I put a ribbon around the books with a little note (that the kids promptly ripped off anyway), but this year back to work full time I got some solar system bookmarks to stick in each book and called it a day. I love watching the kids choose a book and then start reading at the end of the party!
School Birthdays
Celebrating your birthday at school is different than it used to be. Many schools don’t allow food at all, so cupcake celebrations are out. One easy way to celebrate is to offer to come in and read a story to your child’s class. If you want to, you can buy a copy of one of your child’s favorite books and donate it to the class in honor of your child’s birthday. If your child’s teacher does family reading differently or you can’t make it in on the day of your child’s birthday, just send in the book wrapped anyway and the teacher will read it. The kids think it’s a little silly to give a gift when it’s their birthday, but they like the attention and the fact that now one of their favorite books is on the classroom book shelf.
Gifts
The most obvious way to incorporate books into birthdays are to give them as gifts! You can give them to your own children or to your child’s friends. I tend to grab multiple copies of favorite books if I see them at a local bookstore or for a good deal on Amazon. Here are some of my favorite gift books for each birthday. The images are affiliate links, which will help support my blog at no cost to you! Thank you 🙂
1st Birthday
2nd Birthday
3rd Birthday
4th Birthday
5th Birthday
Elementary School Years- 6 through 10th Birthday
I know that once kids learn to read they get into chapter books. It’s possible to pick out a chapter book for a gift but it helps a lot to know their reading level and interests. If I don’t know that, I like to go the picture book route. I think all kids can enjoy picture books even if they are older. Here are some of my favorites for the elementary set.
What are your favorite ways to incorporate books into birthdays? Maybe I have some theme birthday party planners for readers out there? My “Little Blue Truck” themed birthday party for my son’s 1st birthday was not something to blog about, but the cake was pretty impressive.
Ask a Teacher Mom 