Ella and the Mystery of the Missing Frogs by Cassy Polimeni, illustrated by Hykie Breeze

Title: Ella and the Mystery of the Missing Frogs

Author: Cassy Polimeni, illustrated by Hykie Breeze

Genre: Contemporary

Publisher: UWAP

Published: 1^st March 2026

Format: Paperback

Pages: 90

Price: $15.99

Synopsis: If frogs make a home somewhere it means things are in balance. But if something changes, they are the first to know. They can tell when something isn’t right.

Have you ever had a day when everything goes wrong? Ella is having one of those. To make matters worse, the orchestra of frogs that lives in her backyard has disappeared. Ella thinks the two things might be connected, and is determined to get to the bottom of it. There’s only one problem: her little brother Will. Can Ella find the frogs and break the curse – or will her little brother keep getting in the way?

~*~

Ella and her frog bog are back! Buit this time, things are going wrong. Everyone is out of sorts, breakfast is going wrong, and Ella’s brother draws in her new library book! Ella is sure the bad days and disappearance of the frog orchestra are linked…but she needs to get Will, her brother out of the way first. And he seems to be getting away with everything!

It’s time to break the curse. Time to bring the frogs back and set everything straight. It’s going to be hard though, between Mai being sick, Will following her, dumping out the rain water she collects, and ruining a special book. Ella has to be responsible, and find out what is going on.

The latest Ella book is yet again focused on frogs and their place in the environment. She’s still adapting to her new home and hew new school, and the days of nothing going right are even more upheaval for her. It shows that even the slightest change in something can affect everyone, and sometimes, like Ella, the tiny things get to us much more than the big things. Because it’s a build-up of everything going wrong, and Ella feeling like she’s not being heard that I could see resulted in her inability to cope with it all.

Books like Cassy’s series are gentle and fun ways to educate younger readers about the environment and how it is affected by what we do, and what happens when something in the environment, like the frogs in this book, react to what is going on. This captures a moment in time, and how people adjust or work towards fixing what has gone wrong if they can. Because saving the environment is something we can all help with, no matter how small what we do is. Some people can do more than others, and that is okay. This book shows readers what is possible or what they might like to do. Maybe it can even inspire people to do something.

I did feel for poor Ella, having to take so much responsibility for what Will and a boy in her class did as well. It stood out as an example of what happens when one person is held to a higher standard than another and how we deal with this. Who gets away with causing the issue, and who is blamed? It’s important in this story, as it shows that everyone makes mistakes.

The celebration of Ella’s special interest, her friends and her family is wonderfully rendered in this book that continues. It’s a lot of fun to read, and the series is engaging and relatable for younger readers with a fun small, yet diverse cast. I loved reading it and being part of Ella’s world again.