Ella and Olivia #9: The Christmas Surprise product reviews

My Miss Seven absolutely loves this series of Ella and Olivia books as does Miss Five. When she saw in the scholastic brochure that this book was avaliable she was straight on to it! It was a very happy girl when I brought this home for her. She takes after me and read the book in one sitting. Afterwards she told me that she really enjoyed it and we ended up having a hilarious conversation about santa .

I have to confess that we have told our children that santa feeds his reindeer on the mountain we look out towards and for the six weeks prior to christmas every night they have to give Santa a thumbs up or thumbs down for their behaviour. This story totally feeds into our " Santa" story.

I really loved this book. I liked that Ella and Olivia had the build up to christmas and all the excitement that comes with it with trying to figure out what all the presents are under the tree. I remember desperately trying to stay awake to see Santa so loved what happens to Ella and Olivia. This is definitely a brilliant book for christmas and I love that it keeps santa alive. I really did find this so funny and so believable. I will have to keep an eye out in case my girls get any ideas this year.

The Ella and Olivia books all begin the same with an introduction to Ella and Olivias family so even if you haven't read any of the previous Ella and Olivia books this is a great one to start on. I would definitely recommend this for any girl aged five to about 8 years and with christmas fast approaching it is a perfect time to buy. At $10 this is great value and a good way to start off the festive season and get in the christmas cheer.

We love Ella & Olivia books here. We were first introduced to these books last Christmas. These are a great set of books, aimed at girls who are learning to read independently. The books are about a family with two sisters and a baby brother as well. The sentences are nice and short, the language is simple and the chapters are easy to work through.

I was excited to see a Christmas tale in this range. When I showed the book to my daughter she was excited too. "Oh, it's a Christmas one", she said. She immediately put on a Santa's hat and sat with me to listen to the story. We read the whole thing in one sitting, which took about 30 minutes. We could have read it over 5 days though, at a chapter a day.

She was a little disappointed that the pictures inside the book were black and white. They always are, but I think she was hoping for colour for this special Christmas one. I liked that all the icon style illustrations were Christmas themed and each page looked like it had lace down the edge. That was cute.

The story itself was very relatable. That's something we have come to love about the range. In this tale, the girls are so excited about Christmas, that they want to open their presents early. Having been a kid I totally remember how exciting Christmas was. The butterflies every night, waiting for the big day. The way mum use to put gifts under the tree tempting us! I was able to talk through the girls' feelings with my kid as well. It was a fun discussion. This book is a great little read and it's only $10. Even though it's book 9, it would be a great introduction to the series for any girl.