Reading Response on "11 Birthdays" by Wendy Mass

          The book 11 Birthdays by Wendy Mass is about a girl named Amanda, a boy named Leo, their birthday and their friendship.  They aren't brother and sister, but because of the birthday they share, they have become so close that they have almost always thought of each other that way.  They had shared birthday parties year after year, but on their tenth birthday, they got into a fight, and became estranged.  By the time their eleventh birthday came along, they hadn't talked for a year and it was going to be the first birthday they spent apart from each other.  When they woke up the day after their birthday was over, it was their birthday all over again!  Amanda and Leo’s repeating eleventh birthday teaches them that friendship and love is more important than anyone would imagine.

          One way that their repeating birthdays teach Amanda and Leo about the importance of their friendship is that it smashes them together and makes them think as a team.  Since Leo and Amanda are the only ones that are experiencing this day over and over again, they basically have no choice but to join together in friendship.  They have to think together as a team in order to try to get their birthday to stop repeating itself.  For example, when they just become friends again and after they find out about the feud that their grandparents had with each other, they thought together and they came up with the plan to go to the Willow Falls Historical Society to find out if what ended their grandparents feud is a day repeating over and over again.  That was extremely smart because Leo’s their grandfathers journal was there, and so that led them to find out why the day was repeating and what they could do to make it stop.  Without their combined knowledge, neither of them would have thought to go to the Willow Falls Historical Society, which led them to a very important clue of how to get out of the day.

          Another way that Leo and Amanda’s birthdays teach them of the importance of friendship is that it makes them realize how hard it is to make lasting friendships and how easy it is to make them die.  What makes them realize this is the plant that they both had made together at their 5th birthday party.  They didn't know that the plant was keeping them safe from a spell that was in their families, that said that if Leo and Amanda didn't talk for a year, a year later the day would repeat over and over again, exactly what had happened to their grandparents.  When Leo and Amanda got into their fight, Amanda threw the plant out the window, and it shattered to pieces.  This symbolized how precious their friendship was and how easy precious friendships are to break, just like the plant.

          In conclusion,  throughout the course of this book, Amanda and Leo are forced to make up from their fight, and while  they are doing this, they realize the most important thing.   They realize just how important close friendships are, not only to the close friends themselves but it also affects the people around them.  By the time that Amanda and Leo realize this important information, they take it to heart and they rethink what they are doing with their lives and they learn how to be themselves.  This tells us that being with the right people and having love in our hearts is the key to having a happy and healthy life.