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Stella Batts #10
Broken Birthday
What's the best day of the year? A birthday, of course! Stella Batts is turning nine, and she has big plans. Her family will be going to Pennsylvania to celebrate. That's where Stella's best friend Willa moved to, and Stella hasn't seen Willa for months. It's hard not to see your best friend for that long, so this is an important trip. But before Stella can get on the plane--DISASTER STRIKES! Now instead of a birthday weekend sleepover with Willa in Pennsylvania, Stella is stuck in a hospital room in her hometown of Somers, California, with a broken leg, doctors, nurses, and a roommate who is a stranger. What's the worst day of the year? You guessed it. Stella's birthday.
160 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 15, 2017
47 people are currently reading
81 people want to read
About the author
Courtney Sheinmel
41 books259 followersBorn in California. Raised in New York. Went to law school, now write full time. Love: long walks, fresh notebooks, the smell of brownies, pomegranate seeds. Don't love: yogurt, spam (the email kind, and the food kind), deep water, deserted city streets.
Newest book: THE SECRETS OF LOVELACE ACADEMY, co-written with Marie Benedict, available on April 22, 2025.
I love to hear from readers! Email me! Ask a question! I promise to reply.
Newest book: THE SECRETS OF LOVELACE ACADEMY, co-written with Marie Benedict, available on April 22, 2025.
I love to hear from readers! Email me! Ask a question! I promise to reply.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 20, 2020
155 pages. Stella's ninth birthday is just around the corner and she is very excited. Her family is planning to visit her best friend Willa in Pennsylvania. However, nothing goes as planned after Stella falls at school and breaks her leg. It is not easy to deal with everything at the hospital when you really want to be elsewhere having fun. Girls will enjoy this one as well as the rest of the series. The only thing I did not like was the drawings throughout the book did not match what was going on. Instead, the drawings depicted different scenes from earlier books of events from her 8th year. I think those could have waited until the end of the book so they were not so confusing and an interruption to the flow of the story. Otherwise, I really liked this realistic fiction book. Highly recommended for Grades 3-4.
November 30, 2024
My daughter used to love listening to the Stella Batts books and we listened to this together in one go one afternoon while we were cooking and drawing and both feeling sad. I love the predictably of Stella Batts books and the simple lessons learned. The hospital setting of this one was really good too. Exactly the sort of book we both needed on a rather miserable Monday. (This review is actually for the audiobook version, as you might have realised, but that wasn’t an option on Goodreads and I don’t have it in me to go through the rigmarole of contacting the “librarians” yet again.)
October 9, 2017
Of the second half of the Stella Batts series, this is the best book. Kids will love all the details of going to a hospital and having surgery for a broken leg. I also thought the birthday aspect of the story was handled in a new and interesting way, which is hard to do when there are so many birthday chapter books out there already. This one I would recommend, even if the ending is a little too neat.
October 31, 2025
My daughter loves that the Stella Batts books are available on her kindle via audiobook. She has listened to so many. This one is the most recent one she finished. She loves how friendly the characters are. In Broken Birthday Stella breaks her leg falling off a chair and has to spend her birthday at the hospital. While in the hospital Stella makes a new friend who makes the day better than she expected. I love the simple joys and lessons taught in these books.
November 15, 2019
Stella has an accident and breaks her leg. It requires surgery on the day before her birthday. Her family and friends rally and help make a birthday celebrated in the hospital special.
Sheinmel does a terrific job of describing the surgical process and taking some of the fear out of a hospital stay.
Sheinmel does a terrific job of describing the surgical process and taking some of the fear out of a hospital stay.
August 4, 2022
This series, Stella Batts, is a favorite of my granddaughter's. Because she especially loved this one, read it three times, I decided to try it.
Agter reading it I fully understand her love for this character and the series.
Agter reading it I fully understand her love for this character and the series.
Read
May 21, 2024This is part of a cute chapter book series my 5- and 7- year olds both love. This one has a lot of medical specifics since Stella has to be hospitalized.
Want to read
August 1, 2024SM
January 3, 2019
My oldest daughter and I have been reading the Stella Batts books together for a few years now. It was almost 3 years ago when we read our first and we have fallen in love with Stella, her friends, her family, and her adventures. We have read the whole series, though not in order. My daughter did one of her first book reports on a Stella Batts book. And when she found out that there was a book 10 she kept asking me every week if it was out yet or if I had got an advance copy so we could start reading it. And this book made my top ten list this past quarter. But this book was a major change for reading with my daughter.
My daughter is or was a very reluctant reader, but she loves this books. When we first started reading together daily we would alternate pages, or if she was really struggling I would read two for every page she read. While reading this book I came down with a very bad cough, and could barely speak. But she wanted to keep reading so for three nights in a row she read two or three chapters to me so we could keep reading and finish the book. Often reading well beyond the 20 minutes the school expects each night. And in my opinion that is the greatest compliment to this book and this series. A reluctant reader literally could not stop reading it!
In some ways this book is part retrospective. It looks back over the previous 9 books in the series. Stella likes list and her books usually include a list or two. And this book begins with a list of things she wrote about when she was 8. In fact the first chapters of this book is a brief summary of each of the other books:
"Things I Wrote About When I Was Eight
Hi, it's Stella Batts again!
I've written nine books since I turned eight years old. That's because a lot of things happened to me that I wanted to write about, such as:
1 Joshua in my class started calling me Smella, so I changed my name. But then I changed it back again.
2 I taste-tested magic gum, which was fun. But then I got it stuck in my hair, which was NOT fun at all. Plus, my best friend Willa moved away, which was the most not-fun thing ever.
3 But I got a new best friend, named Evie, who moved here from London. She has a cool accent.
4 My baby brother, Marco, was born.
5 I got to babysit Evie's dog, and I lost it! Luckily, my sister, Penny, helped find it.
6 Penny and I were flower girls, we got a new uncle and a new cousin, and we all went swimming in our flower-girl dresses!
7 My friend Lucy and I made a secret newspaper. I wrote about the secret new Candy Carnival at our store, Batts Confections. (It's not a secret anymore.)
8 I got to be on my favorite show in the whole entire world, called Superstar Sam.
9 I slept over in my school library.
In this book I'm going to write about the amazing trip my family and I are about to take. And guess what? By the time I finish this book, the other thing that will have happened is I will have turned NINE YEARS OLD!" And in case you couldn't tell the books are written as if Stella herself wrote them.
In this book Stella is about to turn 9, and her family is travelling to visit her best friend Willa who moved away a year earlier. But on the day before they are to leave for their cross country trip Stella has a mishap. And not a mishap like getting gum in her hair, and not a mishap like using her sisters pony tails as paint brushes. And not a mishap like a lost dog. And now instead of visiting Willa, Stella is stuck in the hospital. To find out the how's and why's you will need to read the book!
My daughter and I have started a number of different series geared for her reading level and that are age appropriate. This is the only one she eagerly awaits new titles. It is the only series that we have read the whole series. And it is the only book that she has started reading to her younger sister. That is the power of the Stella Batts stories, the magnificent writing of Courtney Sheinmel, and the wonderful illustrations by Jennifer A. Bell. Every chapter in this book has a 'Remember When' illustrations that captures a moment from each of the earlier books.
It was great reading books that are so realistic. Stella could be your daughter, the kid next dory, or a friend of the family. I think these books are great reads to share with my kids and friends of the family. I just really hope this is not Stella's last adventures, because we love these books so much. And if it is then it is time to move on and try some other books by Courtney Sheinmel. A wonderful book in am amazing series!
Read the review on my blog Book Reviews and More and reviews of other books by about Stella Batts.
Note: My daughter loved this when we read it two years ago, no she has read most of it to me, and she loves it just as much. A great book in an excellent series.
My daughter is or was a very reluctant reader, but she loves this books. When we first started reading together daily we would alternate pages, or if she was really struggling I would read two for every page she read. While reading this book I came down with a very bad cough, and could barely speak. But she wanted to keep reading so for three nights in a row she read two or three chapters to me so we could keep reading and finish the book. Often reading well beyond the 20 minutes the school expects each night. And in my opinion that is the greatest compliment to this book and this series. A reluctant reader literally could not stop reading it!
In some ways this book is part retrospective. It looks back over the previous 9 books in the series. Stella likes list and her books usually include a list or two. And this book begins with a list of things she wrote about when she was 8. In fact the first chapters of this book is a brief summary of each of the other books:
"Things I Wrote About When I Was Eight
Hi, it's Stella Batts again!
I've written nine books since I turned eight years old. That's because a lot of things happened to me that I wanted to write about, such as:
1 Joshua in my class started calling me Smella, so I changed my name. But then I changed it back again.
2 I taste-tested magic gum, which was fun. But then I got it stuck in my hair, which was NOT fun at all. Plus, my best friend Willa moved away, which was the most not-fun thing ever.
3 But I got a new best friend, named Evie, who moved here from London. She has a cool accent.
4 My baby brother, Marco, was born.
5 I got to babysit Evie's dog, and I lost it! Luckily, my sister, Penny, helped find it.
6 Penny and I were flower girls, we got a new uncle and a new cousin, and we all went swimming in our flower-girl dresses!
7 My friend Lucy and I made a secret newspaper. I wrote about the secret new Candy Carnival at our store, Batts Confections. (It's not a secret anymore.)
8 I got to be on my favorite show in the whole entire world, called Superstar Sam.
9 I slept over in my school library.
In this book I'm going to write about the amazing trip my family and I are about to take. And guess what? By the time I finish this book, the other thing that will have happened is I will have turned NINE YEARS OLD!" And in case you couldn't tell the books are written as if Stella herself wrote them.
In this book Stella is about to turn 9, and her family is travelling to visit her best friend Willa who moved away a year earlier. But on the day before they are to leave for their cross country trip Stella has a mishap. And not a mishap like getting gum in her hair, and not a mishap like using her sisters pony tails as paint brushes. And not a mishap like a lost dog. And now instead of visiting Willa, Stella is stuck in the hospital. To find out the how's and why's you will need to read the book!
My daughter and I have started a number of different series geared for her reading level and that are age appropriate. This is the only one she eagerly awaits new titles. It is the only series that we have read the whole series. And it is the only book that she has started reading to her younger sister. That is the power of the Stella Batts stories, the magnificent writing of Courtney Sheinmel, and the wonderful illustrations by Jennifer A. Bell. Every chapter in this book has a 'Remember When' illustrations that captures a moment from each of the earlier books.
It was great reading books that are so realistic. Stella could be your daughter, the kid next dory, or a friend of the family. I think these books are great reads to share with my kids and friends of the family. I just really hope this is not Stella's last adventures, because we love these books so much. And if it is then it is time to move on and try some other books by Courtney Sheinmel. A wonderful book in am amazing series!
Read the review on my blog Book Reviews and More and reviews of other books by about Stella Batts.
Note: My daughter loved this when we read it two years ago, no she has read most of it to me, and she loves it just as much. A great book in an excellent series.
Read
July 1, 2017Stella is really brave. This book is really good. This series was one of the first and best series I ever read.
Read
March 25, 2018I've read some of these books a long time ago, lol xd
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews