One of my favorite things about being a teacher is that kids always surprise me. I’ve seen students share their lunch with a friend who dropped theirs in a puddle on a field trip. These little acts of kindness warm my heart.

The Happiest Birthday Ever, by Stephanie Berger, is a fantastic story about children participating in random acts of kindness which who shows young readers that it’s all about the little things in life.

Ben is turning seven. He tells his mom what he wants for his birthday (candy, a treasure hunt), but most of all he wants to make people happy. Ben invites his closest friends to his party with a very unique invitation that has RAOK written on them, and the children are asked to bring a stuffed animal. When they arrive at Ben’s house on the day of the party, Ben reveals that they will be doing seven random acts of kindness to celebrate Ben’s birthday.

The acts of kindness are truly thoughtful and realistic. The children bring the stuffed animals to a police station for officers to give to little kids who are upset and scared. Ben and his friends create a treasure hunt for kids at the park. My personal favorite was when the children made cards to send to soldiers.

There are so many things I like about this book that I don’t even know where to start. The writing style of this book is perfect for doing a class read aloud. When I first saw RAOK in the pictures I actually thought this would be the perfect time to stop and ask readers to make a some guess about what RAOK stands for. I like the consistency with the pictures on the left and the text on the right. The sentence structure allows the story to flow naturally without choppiness (perfect for reading aloud). I love that the pictures really do explain what the text is saying on each page, especially for those students who need that visual to help with comprehension.

I am also a HUGE fan of the acts of kindness mentioned in the book. They are ones that kids of all ages can do, they don’t require much money, and they don’t take too much time. With every act of kindness, Ben and his friends placed cards with the act to explain their purpose. The author was generous enough to provide copies of those cards in the back of the book for children to use.

It’s clear that the overall theme of this picture book is happiness. Not only do Ben and his friends make strangers happy with their acts, but they each feel happy knowing they did something kind. This just gives me the warm and fuzzies.

I think this book can be used with students in grades K-3. I would highly recommend making it a read aloud activity for character education or to help celebrate Veteran’s Day. Burger provides readers with a link about more information for sending thank you cards to active military members, and a percentage of sales will be donated to Make A Wish Foundation to help children smile.

To purchase this book click here.