Puppy Rescue (Ella at Eden #10) by Laura Sieveking

Title: Puppy Rescue (Ella at Eden #10)

Author: Laura Sieveking

Genre: Contemporary

Publisher: Scholastic Australia

Published: 1^st November 2023

Format: Paperback

Pages: 192

Price: $15.99

Synopsis: Ella’s class are given a new opportunity to help the community through their Service-Learning project, and Ella is excited to be assisting at the Morningside Animal Shelter. She immediately bonds with a dog named Luna, and has a bunch of ideas for the shelter’s special adoption day. But when Ella overhears something that makes her fear for Luna’s future, she knows she must do whatever it takes to help Luna find her forever home.

~*~

Ella and her friends are coming to the end of their first year at Eden, which means that it is time for year seven to help the community through their Service-Learning project. Ella, Grace, Saskia, Annabelle, and Amelia are off to the Morningside Animal Shelter, where they meet dogs like Luna and Kojak who desperately need homes. But Ella has more going on – Grace is struggling with everything, so Ariel, Violet, Ella, and Zoe are doing everything they can to help Grace pass year seven so she can go into year eight with them.

There are several things going on – the animal shelter, Grace’s grades, and the ongoing tension with Saskia, which comes to a head in this book as things she does cause friction between the girls, and seems to push a further wedge between everyone as she seems to be copying an idea from someone else, and also has to work with Ella on an article for the school newspaper that they hope will unmask a big story at the shelter. With adoption day coming up, Ella is determined to find the dog she’s looking after, Luna, a forever home that will suit her. But with time running out, can Ella help Luna and Grace?

The tenth Ella at Eden is fabulous, because it involves friendship – and most importantly, puppies! As Ella has made her way through year seven, we have been able to experience the ups and downs of high school, and the fraught world of friendships and cliques whilst living away from home, sporting achievements, mysteries, horse-riding and many other activities. Exploring these activities shows the breadth of things that schools can offer – and perhaps what a boarding school like Eden might have for students to take part in as well. It stands well amidst the tradition of boarding school stories that have been part of many people’s reading journeys since Enid Blyton with St Clare’s and Malory Towers – maybe even earlier.

It’s fantastic to see a contemporary Australian boarding school that I think gets the balance of the fantasies of going to a boarding school balanced with the realities of it. It shows the power of good friends and teachers within a school community that celebrates all strengths, and allows all students to explore what interests them, and shows the beauty of everyone in a friendship group having different strengths that can help each other with studying and everyone else. Everything in this middle grade series has been coming together nicely, as each book follows on neatly from each other, and refers back to things that have happened before. This makes it so much fun to read the books in order, but because Ella gives insight into what she has done before, it’s also quite easy to read the books out of order and still know what is going on in Ella’s world at Eden.

I have been reading this series since it started – I was approached to review the first book by Scholastic in 2020 and I have eagerly awaited each book since. I am yet to pick up the next book, but I have seen the cover, and it looks like they’re going to be in Sydney – and I can’t wait to read more about Ella and her friends and celebrate them going into year eight! Seeing Ella grow up from Meet Ella to Ella and Olivia, Ella Diaries and now Ella at Eden has been such fun, because readers get to see her grow at each stage, and in a reader and age-appropriate story and series throughout childhood.

Another fantastic Ella at Eden book!