Everyone knows birthdays are the best, which is why Fox and Rabbit want the biggest, yummiest pizza in the world to surprise their friend Sparrow with on Sparrow's birthday. But in order to make it, they'll have to enlist the help of a few friends, and one new neighbor who is a little bit intimidating.

This is another cute book in an ongoing series. I like how each progressive title has little callbacks to previous titles but they can be read without any prior knowledge anyway. Each title contains several short "stories," which are really more like chapters. Here, the first story isn't as connected to the rest but afterwards the remaining four all revolve in some fashion or another around Sparrow's birthday.

As usual, the key messages are about being a good friend. Wordplay continues to amuse, as does the ongoing lateness of Tortoise missing out on everything -- but with a fun twist in this title where Tortoise finally arrives on time to partake in some activities, with the joy on Tortoise's face being very real. No pronouns are ever used in the book, which keeps it gender neutral, although my experience is that unfortunately children and adults alike will default to referring to all characters as "he" if no alternative is given.

This book keeps it relatively simple with its language and the chapters are fairly short, so it could work well for younger readers looking for that bridge between basic early readers and longer chapter books. It is presented in a comic book style, with paneled illustrations and dialogue bubbles; in fact, all of the text is in dialogue. The illustrations use bold lines and bright colors, with an element of plain old adorableness to the animals and their expressive faces. In short, they are very eye-catching. Some illustrations contain more details than others, such as the illustrations of the busy birthday party, and readers will be sure to delight in poring over those. ( )

This book includes 5 different chapters about the two characters Fox & Rabbit. Each chapter contains a silly plotline and 3 out of the 5 include a party celebration. This is a really fun book for children especially since there are chapters! The reading level is fairly easy and includes lots of fun pictures. Being able to read the words and say you are reading a graphic novel with chapters can be really empowering to children. I would say this book is best for primary & intermediate. ( )