I'm Not Invited?
Written and illustrated by Diana Cain Bluthenthal
Atheneum, $16.95
32 pages, ISBN 0689841418
Ages 4-8

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REVIEW BY SANDY MACDONALD

With the possible exception of the next installment in the Harry Potter series, it's hard to imagine a juvenile title with a broader potential market than I'm Not Invited?. Veteran author Diana Cain Bluthenthal dedicates her latest picture book "To anyone, or the friend of anyone, who's ever felt left out."

Not that Minnie, the book's plucky protagonist, is suffering from the kind of cruel clique-ishness that inspires teachers everywhere to institute rules of "No excluding." It's just that she happens to overhear her best friend, Charles, alluding to an upcoming party. When the expected invitation fails to materialize, Minnie descends into a slough of insecurity. Could the missive have gone astray? Or could it be, she wonders, that "Charles meant to invite me, but forgot to, and then forgot that he forgot?" In a clever touch, reminders of Minnie's predicament are omnipresent: Her vocabulary list for the week starts with "balloons" and ends with "wrap." A wrong number she runs to pick up turns out to be from "Parties 'R' Us." She even notices that the pattern on her pajamas resembles "confetti and streamers."

In fresh and gestural illustrations, Bluthenthal perfectly captures the symptoms of Minnie's malaise: the perplexed expression, the defeated posture, the seemingly immutable mope. When her father remarks on her "missing" smile, "Minnie lifted the corners of her mouth a little, but she made a frown on her plate with her spaghetti." At tuck-in time, Minnie's mother intuits enough to say, "I don't like it when things don't happen either. That's why I'm thankful for tomorrow."

If there's a lesson to be gleaned from this touching tale, it's that we're all prone to letting our imaginations run roughshod. The book encourages little readers not to assume the worst. It also presents an appealing, sympathetic character who manages to survive the slings and arrows of an imagined slight.

Sandy MacDonald is a freelance writer based in Massachusetts.