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Birthday Swap is a very cute book about how a Lori's sister swaps birthday with her so she can have a change to have a party. Lori's birthday is in the winter and they usually celebrate it with a very small party. Her sister Cookie's birthday is in the summer and she always gets to have a big party. Lori didn't find out that her sister was swapping birthdays until they actually arrived at the party. I didn't understand the true point of the story, but it was nice to have another book about a minority group and a race that usually doesn't have many books written about them. ( )

I really enjoyed reading this book. I loved the illustrations and the characters in this book. The illustrations were bright and always stood out on each page. I noticed that on most of the pages when Lori was brainstorming ideas for her sisters gift, the illustrations would represent those ideas while bordering the text. The illustrations also did an excellent job of being able to represent aspects of Mexican culture such as the pinatas. I liked the characters because all Lori wants to do is find the perfect present for her sister. Her sister, Cookie, is an incredible sister and made her birthday the perfect day for Lori. I noticed that Lori sounded like a shortened version of the author's name so I think that this author was telling this story about her life. I think that Loretta Lopez's message is that family is very important and to love and cherish them. Family is a big deal in Mexican culture but it's also big worldwide so we're able to see how family's in different places celebrate one's birth like they did at the end of this story. ( )

cute story of how a big sister cared enough to swap birthdays with her sister so that she can have a big birthday party for the first time ( )