At the Ragtag Hotel: The Elevator Ride - Freya Novak - ★★★.¾

AUTHOR: Freya Novak

ILLUSTRATOR: Anastasiya Halionka

GENRE: Children's Picture Book

PUBLICATION DATE: June 12, 2025

RATING: 3.75 stars.

In a Nutshell: A cute picture book that delivers on characters and vocabulary. Decent plot, adorable illustrations, great learning opportunities. A lovely option for kids who love animals.

Plot Preview:

Dallas Dingo is the elevator operator at the Ragtag Hotel. One sweltering afternoon, his elevator is inundated by guests who find the heat unbearable and want to go to the fourteenth floor. Dallas tries to accommodate them all, but will the elevator be able to carry so many animals? And why does everyone want to go to the fourteenth floor?

While picture books usually deliver best when they have a great plot + illustrations combo, this book delivers despite having an okayish plot because it shines in everything else.

To be clear, the storyline is quite decent for a picture book. But I would have liked some kind of introduction to the Ragtag Hotel and to Dallas Dingo at the start of the story so that the ending made better sense. Without the background, the ending seemed a little abrupt and unclear. Some kids would need adult guidance to understand what happened.

The above was the only major issue I had with the book. The rest delivered quite nicely.

The plot has some repetition of events as each guest approaches Dallas’ elevator one at a time. But the book smartly avoids the feeling of déjà vu by implementing some simple yet creative techniques. For instance, none of the animals you meet in this book are from the usual crowd. They are eclectic in appearance as well as origin. (I won't reveal the animal species in my review, but the blurb mentions all of them, in case you are curious.) The creatures greet Dallas using a salutation from their place of origin, so kids get a nice glimpse of how “Hello” is said in different parts of the world.

The multilingual “Hello” isn't the only vocabulary enhancer in the book. The text, written in ordinary prose, makes an impressive use of verbs and adjectives. There are also several alliterations, metaphors, and onomatopoeic words. This book would be a great resource for adding to the vocabulary of its little readers. But even beyond this, the creative and apt usage makes this a wonderful choice for read-alouds, as imaginative adult readers will find several opportunities to emote the text expressively.

I liked the reveal about the fourteenth floor, though I could guess it well in advance. There are a couple of nice animals facts on this page. I wish there had been a few more fun facts connected to the animals included in the backmatter.

I was a bit confused about why the hotel was named ‘Ragtag’ (primary meaning = untidy, dishevelled), as it has a negative connotation in British English. Whatever little peek we got from the elevator at the hotel and its guests indicated that it was anything but ragtag. The animals in the story do make for a ragtag (secondary meaning = diverse but in an incongruous way) bunch, so I guess that word applies more to the characters than to the hotel. Another thing I was initially puzzling over was the missing G/0 in the elevator buttons (in the illustrations), until it struck me that US architectural numbering begins with ‘1’ for the ground floor. (Mentioning these points for the benefit of non-US readers who might want to choose this book for their kids/students.)

The book uses two distinct typefaces: one a somewhat-typical serif font and the other, a cute sans serif that seems quirkily perfect for kiddo books. I liked the latter typeface better.

The illustrations are absolutely adorable! The colours are nicely vibrant. The animals are slightly anthropomorphised, but not to their extent that their individuality is lost. The best was the expressions of the animals.

I am not sure if this is being planned as a series, but based on this book, Ragtag Hotel seems to have great potential for more stories.

Overall, though I would have liked the book even better with a stronger start and finish to the storyline, I still had fun with its atypical animal characters, smart use of vocabulary and figures of speech, and stunning illustrations.

Recommended. Amazon indicates the book’s target age as 4-8 years, but I think that this will be on the tougher side for the younger end of that spectrum. The older kids in that age range might appreciate the animals and textual content better. This would also be a great classroom resource for grades 2-4 for its lexical bonanza.

My thanks to author Freya Novak for providing me with a complimentary copy of “At the Ragtag Hotel: The Elevator Ride”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.