Ella Diaries #2: Ballet Back Flip product reviews

Having loved the first book in this new series of Ella's Diaries Miss Eight was very keen to get started on this volume two in the series Ballet Backflip. Ella in the Ella and Olivia series has always been into ballet so it is nice that the story continues with continuity in this.

This book is written in the same Dear Diary style as the first book in the Ella Diaries series though the illustrations and writing in this book is in purple. I see a trend in which each diary will be a different colour which is exactly what happens when there are so many lovely gel pen colours to choose from.
So in this diary Ella has to choose between ballet and gymnastics. This is very much a decision girls her age have to start making when they have the opportunity to try out different activities and then realise that everything won't fit into a week and choices need to be made.

My Miss Eight sees a lot of herself in these books and I think these books are helpful for her understanding dilemmas and how to make decisions. I definitely feel that this book follows a good parenting method of choices and consequences and feel that this is reinforcing of the parenting method I use so its helpful for my MIss Eight to read this.

I really like this series as does my Miss Eight and can recommend this for any young reader aged about 8 years plus. A fantastic series and we can't wait to read I Love Pets the next Ella Diary.

This is the second book in the new series called Ella Diaries. Since we have been reading about Ella in the previous series, she has been into ballet. In this story, things are no different. But she is a bit older now and a few things happen in this book to make her think twice about her commitment to Ballet.

Firstly, Peach who is the resident mean girl at Ella's school is into gymnastics. She manages to peak everyone's interest into going to gym classes by doing a few cool moves on the playground. Then Ella gets cast as a rock in the latest ballet show. I think the rock thing was the last straw. The way the diary entries just descended into rock madness for a few pages really showed how annoyed Ella was.

The illustrations of the rock dance moves and the costume made you see just how silly the whole rock part was. Even my daughter thought the rock costume was weird, and didn't look much like a rock at all. This book was quite a bit more emotive than the last book. Ella's diary entries seemed shorter and a bit snappier. She was begging her parents to try gym at one point and the entries were two words each time for a while.

I was pleased with how things wrapped up though. Everyone pretty much got what they needed from the situation. I did find it a little weird that Olivia started ballet in this book because I was sure she started ballet classes in the previous series when Ella is a bit younger than here. But none of that mattered to my daughter who didn't even notice. Ella is a bit nicer about her sister in this book, but not too nice.

Price-wise this book is good value. It took a few nights to read together. It was very entertaining for my daughter and I enjoyed spending the time with her. We laughed at some of Ella's silliness. But she also related to a few pieces of the book despite not being in a dance class.