Ella was launched as part of the Canberra Writers Festival on 28 August 2016 at the National Library of Australia.
In the book, Ella has a heart on her tail that floats high when she is happy and drags on the ground when she is sad. All the kids were given heart-shaped balloon to mimic Ella's tail.
Ella's author, Nicole Godwin, read through Ella with some special volunteers using heart-shaped balloons to show how Ella felt on each page. Nicole thanked a lot of wonderful people who have been involved in the book creation process and talked through some of her motivations for creating Ella. You can watch the whole launch on the video below
A key part of the launch was the wonderful Tania McCartney, author, illustrator, editor and Ambassador for the Chief Minister's reading challenge who officially declared Ella launched.
Thank you to everyone who came along to the launch. It was wonderful celebrating the launch with each and every one of you.
Thank you to Scott Channing and Tania McCartney for the beautiful photos.
Video
If you couldn't make the launch, we've included a full video right here!
A word on the illustrations
Ella's illustrator extraordinaire could not be at the launch in Canberra as she lives in the UK. We asked a few launch guests what they thought of the illustrations.
Audio
If you prefer to listen to an audio file, we've included two files which break the launch into two parts. Thank you William Crowe for the files.
Ella book launch audio - Part 1
Ella book launch audio - Part 2