Ella Diaries: Winter Wonders (Super Special #1) by Meredith Costain, illustrated by Danielle MacDonald

Title: Ella Diaries: Winter Wonders(Super Special #1)

Author: Meredith Costain, illustrated by Danielle MacDonald

Genre: Fiction

Publisher: Scholastic Australia

Published: 1^st September 2023

Format: Paperback

Pages: 192

Price: $17.99

Synopsis:
Warning: You are about to read my utterly biggest secrets. Can I trust you? OK then. I’m Ella, and this is my diary.

Ella and her BFF Zoe are on holiday in the snow!!! They’re having heaps of fun making snow angels, drinking hot chocolate by the fire with their new friends and learning how to snowboard. But what could be making those weird howling sounds at night? And who left those strange tracks in the snow? This week is definitely going to be super special!

~*~

Ella and her family are off to the snow with her best friend Zoe’s family for a week – what fun! Ella’s taking her diary and special pens to make this holiday a magical one. They’re going to learn to ski, learn to snowboard, make snowmen, and drink LOTS of hot chocolate! It’s all fun and games at the snow village, making new friends and having fun until Ella hears a strange howling at night and finds strange footprints in the snow – but nobody else is! And then there’s Flick, a boy in the snowboarding class who keeps making fun of Ella during lessons. And with all this going on, what else is going to happen in this snow-filled week?

I haven’t seen a super special series since The Babysitter’s Club – and that’s going back into the 1990s for me, so I was really excited to see this for the Ella Diaries and was keen to see how it would play out. I knew it would be focused on Ella’s story through her diary rather than each character telling a chapter at a time as they did in The Babysitters Club, because the series is all about Ella writing in her diary. The Ella Diaries super special is longer than the usual novels, and in full colour, bringing the story to life in an exciting and vibrant way.

The Ella Diaries series takes place between Ella and Olivia, and Ella at Eden, so she’s around nine to ten years old, and exploring her identity beyond her family. I can see her love of words and what they mean starting in this series, and many of her interests carry over into Ella at Eden, and I liked this connection, having read books from each of the Ella series. As a Super Special, Ella goes on bigger adventure than in the other books, and I think the presence of more characters makes it a larger story, though everything is still through Ella’s eyes, but she gives everyone a voice, so to speak, as she reflects on what has been going on during her holiday.

Of course, an Ella book wouldn’t be what it is without a mystery or problem to solve, and the big problems and questions are solved – or are they? Ella is determined to find the snow monster – is it a yeti or is it a yowser? I liked this mystery as it showed that there are questions to be found everywhere, fuelling Ella’s curiosity that makes her the fun and vibrant character she is. During this special week, Ella finds the fun in everything she does and learns about friendship and teamwork – not just with her family and Zoe, but her new friends at the snow lodge. Ella and the reader also learn that some people act silly for attention, which I think was done effectively and on a level that children can relate to. I love the way these books are fun whilst also having something – a hobby, a relationship, a problem, and many other things that younger readers can relate to. This is what makes children’s books so wonderful, and Australian children’s books celebrate Australian stories in fun and cool ways. Another great Ella book!