Max and Ella, Stuck Together – at a glance
The School Reading Lists’ five word review: Understanding, sperm donors, confidence, friendships.
Children’s book title: Max and Ella, Stuck Together.
Children’s author: Kristina Rahim.
Genre: Children’s fiction.
Published by: Nosy Crow.
ISBN: 9781805133674.
Recommended for children aged: 9-12.
First published: Paperback May 2026.
This children’s book is ideal for: looking at the complexities of being or using a sperm donor. Can also be used to begin discussions around how families are all different and bullying in any form can cause a crisis of confidence. It also considers the challenges of starting senior school and the importance of friendship in all its different forms.
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Our review:
Max already knew his background wasn’t the same as the other kids in his Year 7 class, but once they realised he had two mums, the constant bullying began. With his confidence at an all-time low, he can’t even enjoy his music, which he’s always loved up till now. As his mums had asked their friend Hari to be their sperm donor, they have suggested he meets and spends some time with him. He’s OK with this until he realises Hari has a daughter and she’ll be there too!
Ella is Hari’s daughter who, although she’s only just found out what her dad did, doesn’t mind at all that he was a sperm donor – it was before she was born, after all. What she’s not impressed about is that her dad is going to meet this boy, and on a day when she had special plans which will be ruined. Ella is starting Year 7 soon, and Hari has arranged for them to meet Max when she was supposed to be going camping with her best friend, who is going to a different school in September, and she isn’t fine about either of those things!
When their first meeting doesn’t go to plan, it’s up to Max and Ella to work together to make things better, but can they do so when they don’t actually want anything to do with each other?
Our verdict:
Max and Ella, Stuck Together provides an excellent way of looking at a difficult subject and treating it with compassion. With an easy-to-read format, it has a storyline with relatable main protagonists who, understandably, have difficulty accepting the situations they currently find themselves in. Max was a confident boy in Year 6, good at sport and music, and was the drummer in a band with his best friend Oskar, but the bullying he suffers at his new school has resulted in him suffering a crisis of confidence and even freezing on stage during the Year 7 autumn concert. The author adds this to the uncertainty of having a donor parent and describes in an easily relatable manner how Max doesn’t know who he is or wants to be any more.
Ella has always been best friends with Izzy, but she is going to a different senior school. Izzy arranged a camping trip with Ella and some of the girls who will be going to her new school, but now Ella can’t go because her dad has decided this is the only weekend they can meet Max. The fact that Ella dislikes change and plans everything in detail means Max’s arrival in her life on such an important weekend has left her feeling completely out of touch with her usually happy and regulated lifestyle.
The meeting of the two children doesn’t go anywhere near how Hari and Max’s mums had hoped. The situation they find themselves in means they have to work together whether they like it or not (they don’t), but gradually they call an uneasy truce. Ella knows she has been unreasonable, but admitting it doesn’t come easily to her. The gradual acceptance of each other is done gently but, with a pressing need to get along in order to get Hari help after he’s hurt in a fall, there is also an urgency in their actions.
Teaching points and book club discussion ideas:
- Max and Ella already had plans for the day they were meeting up. How would you feel if, like Ella, you had something planned you were looking forward to and you had to say you couldn’t go?
- Do you think Max was brave to get up on stage and play? If he hadn’t met up with Hari and Ella, do you think he would have been confident enough to do so?
- Ella and her parents had started a challenge to walk a thousand miles in a year between them. She wasn’t happy about Max joining in. Do you think an activity like this would be fun, or would you rather stay home?
- Hari had an accident on the walk. What basic safety rules didn’t they follow, which meant he was hurt, and Max and Ella had to go and get help?
- Choose one of the following two activities:
- 1) The concert Max was taking part in was to help keep a nearby music venue open. Design a poster for a local newspaper encouraging people to take part or be in the audience. What information would you need to include?
- 2) Mountains and hills can be dangerous places. Design a poster to put up in a visitor centre listing the things you should take with you and how you should behave.
Many thanks to Nosy Crow for the review copy.
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