I find it hard to believe that an entire classroom of 10-year-old children would shun the birthday party of a classmate that they were invited to. Even if that classmate was painfully shy.
Now if it were high school kids, maybe I could see that happening.
My two middle-school girls would be much more likely to attend this girl's party than the perfect, rich, girl-who-has-everything's party down the street.
To be honest, we don’t now how severe her impairment is, and just handing out invitations to kids you have never socialized with doesn’t mean they’ll show up. Let’s look at the positive side that hundreds of Americans did the right thing to make this kid happy.
Kids are cruel too. Back in grade school, my classmate had epilepsy and the same thing happened, no one showed up. Back then, I had the pox so I had a really good excuse and felt bad for the dude as he was extremely smart. Socially, he was just shunned.
It doesn't say that, unambiguously in the story - after several of her classmates didn't respond to their invitations - but after her parents sent invitations to Mackenzie's classmates and heard no response, which one was it ? Maybe people didn't respond fast enough and she wanted to make sure her daughters birthday was truly memorable. In a story like this you never get to hear the other side, bottom line, a little girl had a great day thanks to lots of kind caring people.