Ella’s World: Sit Bob, Sit!

Ella’s World: Sit Bob, Sit! by Yvette Poshoglian & Camilla Frescura (Scholastic) Fiction, Reader RRP $9.99 ISBN 9781761528521

Reviewed by Karen Hendriks

Yvette Poshoglian is a bestselling author of over 50 books for children and young readers. She writes the popular Ella and Olivia series.

Camilla Frescura was born in a village in the North of Italy and still lives there. She loves to work on books that always include important themes, and her illustrations are full of joy and love.

The world of Ella and Olivia covers a range of readerships and age groups, and now kids starting out on their reading journey can follow these fun characters through their reading stages. This is book one in a new series by Yvette Poshoglian for readers four and older.

The book uses decodable phonics and a large foundation handwriting font to help young readers see and read the words. The colourful illustrations are also in a large format and help with meaning and the fun aspect of reading.

Ella and Olivia have a dog. His name is Bob. But Bob can be trouble! What will he get up to next?

Yvette Poshoglian has created a simple storyline that will interest young readers and engage them to find out what Bob likes and gets up to. The text uses words with three repeated phonemes so that kids can imprint them to memory and build word knowledge. The short sentences and punctuation give a beginner reader time to absorb information and decode it. The choice of a puppy is clever because most children love or know about dogs. The back of the book lists the words learned in the book and lists tricky words and phoneme sets used. This is handy for teachers and children who can read and revise the words learned in the text.

Camilla Frescura’s bright and happy style works well with the text. The colour palette is bright and happy. Bob's characterisation is cartoon-like and adorable. You look at him, and it makes you smile. The images of Ella and Olivia have great facial expressions and body movements. The whole book has a sense of fun; each page is engaging and encourages page turns. 

 Ella’s World: Sit Bob, Sit! is a fun early reader for children four and older. Children learning to read will not only gain reading skills but engage with fun characters that will help give that sense of achievement in mastering a new skill and reading a book independently. This book will be popular with both parents and teachers of beginner readers.