Ella

October 20, 2014
What if Eloise was a hipster-in-training and lived in a chicly gritty boutique hotel, instead of the venerable Plaza? While some of Ella’s unrepentant mischief directly descends from her forebear (“I have to go through the halls and collect ‘Privacy Please!’ signs from the doorknobs”), she’s a full-fledged child of this century, with her Wi-Fi demands and endearing male nanny, who has “tattoos for sleeves” and “might go in with some guys to buy a grilled cheese truck.” Debut author Kasdan name checks urban standbys from edamame to Zumba, while fellow first-timer Chin’s funny full-color vignettes of a multicultural downtown scene and a heedlessly energetic child are loving tributes to Hilary Knight’s originals. But does it work as a children’s book? Eloise did because the line between adults and children couldn’t have been clearer, and WASP-y social mores were ripe for pint-size insurrection. Ella, however, is surrounded by grownups who are running as fast as they can from staid maturity. When everyone is in touch with his or her inner child, the one real kid becomes just another face in the crowd. Ages 5–up. Author’s agent: Rebecca Gradinger, Fletcher & Company.

November 1, 2014
An iconic picture book gets rebooted.Even before the opening-"I am Ella / I am six // I am an urban child / I live at The Local Hotel"-savvy readers will recognize the cover design of a girl writing her name in red lipstick on a huge mirror. Ella has brown skin, a bubble skirt and less of a glint in her eye than Kay Thompson and Hilary Knight's Eloise, but she takes similarly rambunctious ownership of her funky, contemporary home-hotel. Ella's mischief and cadence (and Kasdan's minimal punctuation) ring thrillingly familiar: "If there are a lot of wheelie suitcases trying / to get in the elevator and these people are all in a band / with a bunch of groupies and publicists / and bloggers or something I wedge myself right in / the middle of it and drop my MetroCard." The tattooed, male nanny "might go in with some guys to buy a grilled cheese truck"; elsewhere Ella reports, "Sometimes I put edamame / in my nostrils." Her self-descriptions are hilarious; the text winks with merry self-awareness. However, Chin's color-focused art is flat and unfortunately earnest, lacking visual humor. This newbie mischief-maker can't approach the original, but that's fine-it's not parody, correction or competition; it's homage. Both books together make a very cool gift. For hipsters of all ages. (Picture book. 6-adult)

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October 1, 2014

Gr 1-3-This modern takeoff on Kay Thompson's Eloise (Penguin, 1956), the iconic book about an irrepressible six-year-old and her adventures at the Plaza Hotel, centers on Ella, an equally precocious young black girl who lives at the Local Hotel in Brooklyn with her male nanny (Manny). Kasdan follows her source material closely, matching Eloise's stream-of-consciousness narration and updating it with current references ("Here's some other stuff I'm into/Flossing/Meditation/Zumba/Drum circles/Mani/Pedis") and liberally injecting nods to hipster culture, such as Manny's sleeve tattoos and aspirations to own a grilled cheese food truck. Chin departs from Eloise illustrator Hilary Knight's frenetic black-and-white cartoon style, infusing Ella with color, both literally and figuratively (Kasdan's work is far more racially diverse than Thompson's), and going for a flatter, almost pop-art look to illustrate his caricaturelike cast of characters. Ella herself is straight out of The Hipster Handbook, sporting a thick belt and skirt over black leggings and an oversize necklace. As with Thompson's book (originally subtitled A Book for Precocious Grown Ups), many of the jokes will go over children's heads ("[Manny] says 'My hair is an extension of my philosophy'/I say 'My hair is an extension of my head'"). However, while Eloise balanced its sophisticated humor with its protagonist's appealingly sassy voice, this text is dominated by references to modern culture that seem more likely to entertain self-aware twenty and thirtysomethings than kids. Though this entertaining spoof makes for a fun read for those who grew up with Eloise, children are better off sticking with the original.-Mahnaz Dar, School Library Journal

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