Of Course The Modern Eloise Lives In Brooklyn And Has An Etsy Shop

Eloise is a city child. She lives at the Plaza. She’s also kind of an insufferable, undisciplined brat, but since she’s not a real kid she’s pretty entertaining to read. Adults of my acquaintance love her the way we love Miss Piggy and Iman, and now Kay Thompson’s Eloise is being honored with a hipster parody named Ella.

Ella is a little girl who lives in Brooklyn at the Local Hotel, which is a thinly veiled analog for the Wythe Hotel. As a thoroughly modern 6-year-old hipster girl, Ella has an Etsy store, a male nanny with full arm sleeve tattoos, and some sparkly Doc Martens I need to buy for my infant (and myself) as soon as possible. (Look, I never said I wasn’t a hipster.)

Ella and Eloise lead very similar lives, though Ella’s New York is much more diverse than what you’ll see in Eloise’s books. It also appears to be that everyone Ella knows has tattoos, but I must admit I laughed when Ella says that Manny, “might go in with some guys to buy a grilled cheese truck.”

I’m not sure the world needed another Eloise, because Eloise herself already exists. But Ella is adorable and her book might be worth buying just for the illustrations alone, because they are absolutely gorgeous. Also, I want them to be friends. I would like to own dolls of Eloise and Ella that I could send on all manner of wacky, privileged adventures.