Children’s Book Themed Birthday Party Ideas

It’s high time I post more details about Judah’s book themed birthday party, isn’t it? I mean, it’s only been what, 3 months?

Our original plan was to have a small party at home – grandparents, Godparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. But then we realized that Judah is such a loved little boy that there would be a lot of people who would want to celebrate his first birthday with us. So we reserved the multi-purpose room (which is the fellowship hall) at our church and started to plan.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I had a really hard time deciding on a party theme. But because we love books and reading, once the thought came to me, a kids book themed birthday party was a no brainer.

Judah is our only child, and he will most likely always be our only child. And because of that, I decided that if we’re only going to get to do the first birthday party once then we might as well “go big or go home.” And go big, I did.

This party was absolutely outstanding! Insanely stressful, to be sure. I forgot the slow cooker for the meatballs, and they had to be heated in the microwave for them to be done in time once someone with a Crock Pot actually got there. And I had to call people in at the last minute to help with picking up food and balloons (there were so many balloons that they wouldn’t all fit in my car!). Plus, Judah was a HUGE crab that day. But overall, it turned out better than I had hoped.

And we vowed to never throw a party this large and crazy again.

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Book Themed Birthday Party Decorations

Kids books (and kids parties) are usually bright and colorful. I went with orange, lime green, and turquoise for the plates, cups, and other decor because they’re such bright, cheerful colors! Plus, they go well with most kids books so they were a great choice for a book themed birthday party and worked well as accent colors.

These library check-out card invitations from The Little Dabbler were just adorable. The only issue we had with them was that in the font used on the invitation, the lower case L is the same as the number 1, and I didn’t catch it with the preview she sent before finalizing the invite – totally my fault there, definitely not a problem with the seller! A couple people had a hard time deciphering my email address, but everyone knows how to get a hold of me so it wasn’t a big deal at all.

I also ordered a Click, Clack, Moo banner for over the food table from Book Girl Creations on Etsy. It was so cute! She uses old, damaged books and turned them into a garlands/banners. So clever!

I found this party background decoration years ago on Pinterest and just knew I’d use it someday. The day before the party, some Swaddling Clothes volunteers and I put it together. It was so easy and looked awesome! We layered three plastic tablecloths, like the ones you find at the dollar store, and cut them into strips, almost all the way to the top, leaving about 3 inches or so. We braided the top couple of inches to make sure all three layers were visible and tied knots at the end of the braids to keep them in place. I added some tulle poufs and paper circle fan things to the top, and it made a fun and colorful cake table backdrop.

The gift table was just two layered table cloths, one higher up than the other and then gathered in the center, along with some of the remnants of the cake table backdrop tied onto the center and ends. Super easy and so cute!

Since this was a book themed birthday party, I thought bookmarks would be an appropriate party favor. I did a Google search for reading-related quotes and found a lot I really liked. But I narrowed it down to 4 and created bookmarks through Canva, a free website for creating graphics that I use for some of my blog graphics. Look how cute they turned out!

(And because I accidentally ordered 400 instead of the 100 I had planned to order, he’ll still be using them when he goes off to college…)

Table Centerpieces

I used lots of Judah’s books as decorations for tables, especially the ones that had coordinating toys. It was a great money saver since we already had most of the decor.

Each table had a centerpiece, several books, and a few toys that all coordinated with the theme. It gave the room some charming variety and really encouraged people to walk around, check out the different table decorations, and chit chat with each other.

Once I had an idea for the specific themes, I searched Oriental Trading for centerpiece pieces. I ended up buying yellow paper buckets, medium sized styrofoam balls, and lollipops that matched some of the books we had. The styrofoam balls were wrapped in tissue paper and placed inside the buckets. I took about 9 to 12 lollipops and stuck the sticks into the styrofoam balls, spacing them out so they weren’t all clumped together. On the day of the party, my friend and I picked up balloons at the local party supply store, and she and her kids tied balloons to each bucket’s ribbon handle. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures of the finished product, but they were absolutely darling!

Book Themed Food and Drinks

The food menu was a bit eclectic, but it was so much fun! Everyone really enjoyed checking out what types of food went with each book. Here’s a list of what we served:

• Goodnight Moon – chicken salad croissants
• Green Eggs and Ham – green deviled eggs
• Green Eggs and Ham – ham and cheese pretzel sliders
• Dragons Love Tacos – taco salad
• One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish – Swedish fish
• One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish – multicolored Goldfish crackers
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar – fruit platter
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar – caterpillar cake
• The Three Little Pigs – pigs in a blanket
• Hop on Pop – Boom Chicka Pop kettle corn
• If You Give a Mouse a Cookie – chocolate chip cookies
• If You Give a Dog a Donut – chocolate and powdered sugar mini donuts
• Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs – sweet and sour meatballs
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – polyjuice potion (lime punch)
• Bookworms – sour gummy worms

Cakes!

Look at these amazing cakes!! My cake lady friend made the stack of books. The top was strawberry, the middle was white, and the bottom was chocolate. They were absolutely delicious! You may have noticed that the book titles are a bit unusual. That’s because they have special meaning to us. The Fire Cat was my favorite book growing up. Milton the Early Riser was Eric’s favorite book as a kid. And Grimm’s Fairy Tales? Well, I always loved those when I was young too, they were some of my favorite stories, but Eric actually spoke about them in a sermon several years ago, and I thought that was kind of fun.

My sister-in-law made the darling Very Hungry Caterpillar cake. Didn’t she do an incredible job?? I made the smash cake and cupcakes. The cupcakes have edible wafers with book covers printed on them. I purchased them from Little Hope Cakes on Etsy, but she doesn’t appear to make the edible ones anymore.

A big thank you to our friends Kathy and Renee for a lot of the photos taken that day! I was so busy that I hardly had a chance to breathe, let alone take many pictures.

What’s your favorite birthday memory or was your favorite birthday party theme growing up? Did you throw a big, fun party for your kids’ first birthdays?