Such an amazing book to have in your home library and/or your classroom. I love these characters because they show diversity in a loving amazing way. Also, this book gives us a sense of a bonded/ caring family, in a diverse home. It warms my hear to see a diverse family unit shed in good light.

Ella Has A Plan tells the story of Ella, who is a conflict mediator without realizing it. Concerned that her argumentative cousins will ruin her mother's big party, Ella seeks out the advice of her great-grandfather. However, Ella learns that she can fix this problem through her own machinations--without ever hearing her great-grandfather's story! Ella Has A Plan has delightful rhyming prose, making it an excellent read-aloud for children. It also has enjoyable illustrations featuring characters of color who all have distinctive hairstyles and manners of dressing; it truly shows an appreciation for the character's culture. Although some of the rhymes seem a bit forced, the overall narrative, text, and illustrations make this an excellent addition to library collections.

This is a rather text-heavy picture book about a little girl who wants to keep her cousins from quarrelling at Mummy's party.

The rhyming text is okay with decent meter for the most part (although you may have to read some lines a few times to get the timing down if you're reading it aloud). The story, however, was just so-so for me. Ella is worried about keeping Taye and Jade from arguing. So she talks to her mother, who tells her that Great Grandad Frank once played a prank to get his kids to stop quarrelling. Ella resolves to ask him, and she does. The problem is that Great Grandad Frank never actually tells the story, and the book ends with Ella wanting to come up with another plan to find out about the prank. Perhaps because her own prank (that she came up with herself) was successful at getting Taye and Jade to stop arguing, Great Grandad Frank's story was deemed unnecessary. But I found that omission kind of unsatisfying, and a bit of an unfair tease.

The pictures are cute, especially when Ella plays her prank with all the kids. At the back, there's a spread showing all the characters in the extended family, clearly labelled with their names. Judging by the name of the publishing company on this one, I'm guessing that these characters are based on real people.

Overall, this isn't bad, but it's a bit long for reading aloud. Some readers will probably also be frustrated by not finding out about Great Grandad Frank's prank. I know I was.

A very long and superbly sustained poem for the young reader, but that's not the whole story about this book. On the plus side it shows family life with everyone a person of colour, and that a young girl can win the day when two permanently bickering cousins she fears are going to upset her mother's birthday party get bested. But at the same time – production-wise, the font might be small for the intended audience this is pitched at; poetically thinking we get a lot of the couplets' endings repeated, meaning fewer original rhymes are actually on the pages; and narratively, the whole thing goes off on a tangent for no reason with the girl's older relative's anecdote going nowhere, and her 'solution' to her problem is really on the pathetic side. Two and a half stars for this – it's worth sharing, but will probably be forgotten about before it's back at the library.