Alma Flor Ada

Serafina’s Birthday

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Sebas­t­ian has over­slept and almost misses his train, his only way to get to his best friend Serafina’s birth­day party. Although he man­ages to catch the train his mis­ad­ven­tures are only begin­ning: on rush­ing to the sta­tion he has for­got­ten Serafina’s gift. For­tu­nately he has his wal­let… but how good is a wal­let when being Sun­day, all the vil­lage stores are closed? Sebas­t­ian sets out to get a present, any present. But his efforts bear no fruit… he is chased by a cat, a bunch of squir­rels and some angry crows.

Finally, defeated, he decides to show up for the party even if he is not bring­ing a gift.

Grandpa, the fam­ily sto­ry­teller, has a cold and has not made the party. When Sebas­t­ian sits down on Grandpa’s chair and begins to tell his adven­tures all the bun­nies present are delighted. A birth­day party with­out sto­ries would not be a real party: Sebas­t­ian has indeed brought the best gift of all!

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This book was born out of a child’s request for a story. I was baby sit­ting Olmo, the grand­son of my good friend Viví Escrivá whose beau­ti­ful art enhances so many of my books. We were in Viví’s coun­try home in the beau­ti­ful town of Polop de la Marina, very close to the Mediter­ranean coast in the province of Ali­cante, Spain. Viví’s old­est daugh­ter, Ana, had just arrived home with a beau­ti­ful bunny rab­bit and Olmo was very taken by the bunny. When I offered Olmo to make a story just for him, try­ing to keep him close to me –quite a feat with Olmo as you can read in my Author’s Note to the book Olmo and the Blue But­ter­fly – he sug­gested the story should be about a bunny. I was about to begin a bunny story when he added: “and a train.”

Now, that was the magic clue, put together a bunny and a train and what does one get? The rab­bit Sebastián who has prob­lems being on time and almost looses the train on a most impor­tant day, Serafina’s birthday.

This was one of my first books pub­lished in the main­stream trade mar­ket in the United States and is such a source of joy. When the book went out of print –oh, how much dam­age an insen­si­tive book review can cause! —I felt a great sense of loss. This had always been a favorite story to tell. It also was a favorite of my great-nephews, chil­dren of my sweet niece Mar­cie Fellers Pet­tit. She could never under­stand that the book would be kept from other chil­dren to enjoy as much as hers did.

For­tu­nately, a story can have many lives. Now Serafina’s Birth­day or is avail­able as a play in the book Roll-n-Role or as El cumpleaños de Ser­a­fina in Teatrín de don Crispín in the Gate­ways to the Sun or Puer­tas al sol the­atre collection

READERS’ RESPONSES

If you have enjoyed read­ing or shar­ing this book, I would very much like to hear from you. Please click here to send your comments.