11 Birthdays: A Wish Novel

The theme Magic and Fate drives the plot because it freezes Amanda and Leo in the mystifying enchantment that forces them to repair their relationship and to learn important things about themselves and each other. Magic and fate are significant to the novel because they lift the characters out of their own self-centeredness and help them see how they’ve gone wrong in their relationships with themselves and with others. By forcing Leo and Amanda (and their ancestors generations before them) to relive their shared birthday, the enchantment grants them space to make and rectify errors without consequences.

Amanda, for example, rectifies the small mistake of forgetting her lunch. She then moves on toward more significant mistakes—her mother’s switched poster that costs her a job, her own lack of appreciation for her loyal friends—until finally she can forgive Leo and take responsibility for her role in fixing the friendship as they move forward. By granting the space for a completely free “do-over,” the enchantment lets Leo and Amanda grow and change in a safe loop of time where they are essentially free of the judgment of others because errors will be erased when the day resets. As a result, the loop in time allows them to heal both themselves and their friendship.

The magical spell which traps Amanda and Leo on their 11th birthday is initially alluded to in Angelina’s mysterious and magical aura at Amanda and Leo’s birth and their first birthday; Angelina establishes the mysterious and enchanted connection which must be maintained between Leo and Amanda when she tells the parents that: “I believe Amanda and Leo will be the best of friends,” and asks: “you will be sure to celebrate this day together every year, no?” (3). Fate and destiny is alluded to in Angelina’s strange comment; Leo and Amanda seem predestined to be friends. When the double booking at Mr. McAllister’s Magic Castle Birthday Palace ensures that the combined first birthday party takes place, Angelina reflects that, “everything was going exactly according to plan,” further establishing Angelina as central to the mystery (8).

The SpongeBob balloon becomes a symbol of the curse of Amanda’s repeating eleven11th birthday, which she clearly remembers shoving into her closet the night before: “I spy something moving in the corner of my room. I bolt upright. It’s the SpongeBob balloon” (57). The balloon becomes a symbol of the repeating pattern; it reliably arrives back in the middle of the room to symbolize that the confusing reset has occurred, even when Amanda shoves it out of the window. Furthermore, Amanda’s blistered, and then blistered and bandaged, heels confirm the fact that the previous two birthday parties occurred, as the blisters are caused by the red Dorothy shoes which she wears; she realizes that: “this is no dream or deja vu” (72). When Leo passes Amanda the note wishing her, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY (for the fourth time!)” revealing that he, too, is involved in the mysterious magical curse (102).

Fate is implied in Mrs. Grayson’s comment about the historical feud; Amanda’s great-great-grandfather “turned this town on end with the whole feud” (86). Leo and Amanda later learn that “one day, they just patched everything up” (180). They begin to suspect parallels between themselves and their ancestors, particularly when symbolic similarities emerge between the children and their great-great-grandparents: “‘that was my great-great-grandfather’s desk?’ ‘And that,’ she points at an old-fashioned record player, ‘is Mrs. Ellerby’s prized possession, her phonograph’” (194). Leo’s great-great-grandfather liked writing, like Leo, and Amanda’s great-great-grandmother, like Amanda, liked music.

Like Ellerby and Fitzpatrick, Amanda and Leo toast to their friendship, which they vow to maintain. Angelica helps the pair to make the added connection that the potted plant is important, and Amanda restores it in her bedroom, breaking the curse.