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Riverside Kids #8
Russell and Elisa
Seven-year-old Russell and his three-year-old sister Elisa have adventures with friends and family in their apartment building.
87 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1989
About the author
Johanna Hurwitz
117 books67 followersJohanna Hurwitz is an American author of more than sixty children's books. She has sold millions of books in many different languages.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 14, 2026
Saw this in a little free library and remembered liking it as a kid. Read it to the younger boys and it was just ok, some kind of bratty kids and boring-ish stories. Just read Beverly Cleary instead 😅
September 16, 2018
The baseball chapter is - of course - my favorite. I laaaaughed. I also couldn't believe how young their dad sounded at the game.
August 17, 2017
Russell and Elisa are growing up. Now that Elisa is bigger the have more fun together. The only problem is Elisa's doll. Everywhere she goes she take her doll with her. But Russell don't like that Elisa always take her doll with her. But One day Elisa lost her doll. And she is very sad about it.
Interesting book!
Interesting book!
January 10, 2023
I have read this series to all of my children. The situations and emotions are interesting and relatable. Johanna Hurwitz understands the world of this age. Sharing these stories about people their age helps me connect with my children.
December 19, 2016
This review collects my thoughts on all of the Elisa books of the Riverside Kids series: Russell and Elisa, E is for Elisa, Make Room for Elisa, Elisa in the Middle, Ever-Clever Elisa, Summer With Elisa, and Elisa Michaels, Bigger & Better.
Elisa's segment of the series begins in 1989 and runs until 2003, meaning the content isn't especially dated. I did notice that the series seems to have an old-fashioned tone to it, which reminds me of books by authors like Carolyn Haywood and Beverly Cleary, and there aren't a lot of references to technology, including television, so in that sense even the newest books felt older than they actually are. But the references to phonographs, slacks, and chicken pox have disappeared.
My observations:
Russell is a pretty disagreeable kid, with a pessimistic attitude and lots of complaints about homework, but I still found him likable. He's not the perfect older brother by any means, but the growing pains of his friendship with his sister, Elisa, reflect real life very closely.
Of all the kids in this series, Elisa is the most interesting. I wonder if the author also felt that way as she wrote these books, since there are so many more about Elisa and the Michaels family than about the Resnicks. I think it's her somewhat mischievous streak that makes Elisa so appealing. Like Clementine and Ramona, she makes mistakes even when she acts with good intentions, which is a phenomenon all kids understand, because all kids makes those types of mistakes.
There doesn't seem to be much tension between the kids and their parents in any of these books. I didn't really pick up on any instances of kids being punished; even when they do something wrong, they are easily forgiven and everything goes back to normal within a few pages. I felt like that contributed to the timeless feeling the books gave me, but also made them seem less authentic and possibly less appealing to kids. Certainly most contemporary chapter books have some sort of adult/child conflict in them, even if it doesn't last long.
Though there is something comforting about these books for me, especially given how much they remind me of my beloved Carolyn Haywood books, I suspect they would bore most kids. They are sweet stories which evoke feelings of nostalgia in adults, but they're pretty free from adventure and excitement. There is something to be said for finding the extraordinary in the ordinary, but I think only kids who are already hooked on realistic fiction would have any interest in reading them. They certainly aren't popular in my library; the only person to check them out all year was me.
I'm glad I took the chance to read through this series, but I have to admit it began to get repetitive for me around the fourth book, and reading them did sort of become a chore in the end. I'm glad to know them better so that I can offer them to families in my library seeking chapter books to read aloud with their preschoolers and kindergarteners, but I will be surprised if they ever become a favorite again.
Elisa's segment of the series begins in 1989 and runs until 2003, meaning the content isn't especially dated. I did notice that the series seems to have an old-fashioned tone to it, which reminds me of books by authors like Carolyn Haywood and Beverly Cleary, and there aren't a lot of references to technology, including television, so in that sense even the newest books felt older than they actually are. But the references to phonographs, slacks, and chicken pox have disappeared.
My observations:
Russell is a pretty disagreeable kid, with a pessimistic attitude and lots of complaints about homework, but I still found him likable. He's not the perfect older brother by any means, but the growing pains of his friendship with his sister, Elisa, reflect real life very closely.
Of all the kids in this series, Elisa is the most interesting. I wonder if the author also felt that way as she wrote these books, since there are so many more about Elisa and the Michaels family than about the Resnicks. I think it's her somewhat mischievous streak that makes Elisa so appealing. Like Clementine and Ramona, she makes mistakes even when she acts with good intentions, which is a phenomenon all kids understand, because all kids makes those types of mistakes.
There doesn't seem to be much tension between the kids and their parents in any of these books. I didn't really pick up on any instances of kids being punished; even when they do something wrong, they are easily forgiven and everything goes back to normal within a few pages. I felt like that contributed to the timeless feeling the books gave me, but also made them seem less authentic and possibly less appealing to kids. Certainly most contemporary chapter books have some sort of adult/child conflict in them, even if it doesn't last long.
Though there is something comforting about these books for me, especially given how much they remind me of my beloved Carolyn Haywood books, I suspect they would bore most kids. They are sweet stories which evoke feelings of nostalgia in adults, but they're pretty free from adventure and excitement. There is something to be said for finding the extraordinary in the ordinary, but I think only kids who are already hooked on realistic fiction would have any interest in reading them. They certainly aren't popular in my library; the only person to check them out all year was me.
I'm glad I took the chance to read through this series, but I have to admit it began to get repetitive for me around the fourth book, and reading them did sort of become a chore in the end. I'm glad to know them better so that I can offer them to families in my library seeking chapter books to read aloud with their preschoolers and kindergarteners, but I will be surprised if they ever become a favorite again.
July 5, 2014
Nobody asked Russell if he wanted a baby sister But as Elisa grows from a screaming infant to an imaginative four-year-old, irrepressible Russell has to admit that having a spirited little sister just might be fun And Russell's growing, too, in these four chapter books packed full of everyday adventures."Hurwitz is a master of middle-grade fiction. As always, her prose is..
April 2, 2012
I'm not the biggest fan of the Elisa series by Johanna Hurwitz. I see why they get compared to Beverly Cleary's Ramona books (similar sort of stories) but they aren't as good. There are cute and funny elements, but I find them a bit boring. P says she likes these books 'i don't know - medium'.
October 26, 2014
Arlo enjoyed this one, this is the 3rd book we've read in the series and he now knows all the characters.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews