I just love these Ella Josephine books. The author's writing is excellent. She normalizes diversity without drawing attention to it. She perfectly captures the mind of a 9 year old child. So happy to read this, and I cannot wait until my children are of an age to read these books themselves.

I am a 23 year old woman. I have no children, but this was one of my most anticipated releases. It definitely lived up to my expectations. I’ve always loved the protagonist in books like Junie B Jones, Eloise, and Ramona and Beezus. I like characters that aren’t perfectly behaved all the time and I love when those characters are given full personalities, so Ella Josephine seems like the perfect addition to those classic storybook girls.

Okay now onto the story- just like the first book this story was told in three acts. While , I liked all of them and there was connection going through them, they didn’t feel as tied together in the end like the ones in the first book. But that did not make them less pleasurable on their own. I like how in the first story, Ella does not seem any less helpful to Cleo situation despite being younger and I like that she is treated with respect and equal to the adults around her. This also goes into the next story where Ella becomes the resident in charge. All the adults around her are willing to listen and pitch ideas and follow her orders and I think that is wonderful.
The dinner party story did a great job at showing the characters relationships to each other. Since we usually only see Ella‘s point of view, it was nice seeing how the other residence of 1106 Wildflower Pl. interact with each other.
We also got to see more of the characters personalities, which was fun. The first book introduced us to five different households and 10 different characters which is a lot, the second book gave us more of them so it feels like getting to know them better.
As someone who is totally not the target demographic for this book, I still really liked it. The illustrations were fun and full of details, the stories are fun, and the writing is so well done.

I really appreciate that. Nina LaCour doesn’t water down her writing when it comes to her children’s books. She also isn’t one to shy away for more serious topics, like not knowing exactly who you are. Yes, it’s the children’s book- but it’s still feels like Nina LaCour book and I appreciate it for the same reason I appreciate We Are Okay and Yerba Buena.