Ella Unleashed

July 1, 2018

Gr 4-7-After winning a lottery to show her dog at the National Dog Show, Ella Cohen is determined to persevere despite severe embarrassment at past shows. Meanwhile, she secretly signs her father up for an online dating site, impersonating him in an attempt to find a perfect match. Readers will laugh and cheer as Ella jumps through hoops to get the perfect date for her father. She compassionately voices quiet observations to readers, focusing on the changes in both her parents' lives since the divorce. VERDICT Recommended for libraries in need of light and funny, coming-of-age tween stories about blended families.-Mary-Brook J. Townsend, The McGillis School, Salt Lake City

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2018
Middle schooler Ella Cohen navigates life with divorced parents. Two years ago, Ella's mother married Krishnan, who lets Ella show his champion dog, Elvis. Ella is close to her stepfather and is happy to share this hobby with him, but she feels pangs of guilt when she thinks of her own father, David, who cannot deign to be in the same room as his ex-wife's new husband. Ella wishes she could share this hobby--and her debut at the National Dog Show in Philadelphia--with her entire family. Conjecturing that if her father had a partner he would be happy and confident around Krishnan and, therefore, would attend the dog show, Ella and her friends set up a fake online-dating profile for her father, and all sorts of hijinks ensue. By the end of this delightful and satisfying novel, Ella gets her comeuppance--she is caught in a barrage of lies and must apologize to her mother, her father, Krishnan, and Beth (a woman whom her father inadvertently falls for). Ultimately, Ella learns she can't control all possible outcomes to create the best of all possible worlds. Cherry presents a realistic portrait of a multicultural, blended family--Ella, her mother, and her father are white and Jewish, and Krishnan is South Asian--and doesn't blunt the challenges of divorce.Realistic and sympathetic, with an appealing protagonist and an interesting hobby for texture. (Fiction. 8-12)

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.