Published By: Macmillan Children’s Books
Pages: 288
Released On: 02/11/2023
Reading Age: 9-11
Illustrated By: Penny Neville-Lee
At the stroke of midnight on the dawn of December, five-year-old Finn Albedo is found frozen in the city park standing on a pedestal of ice. His heart is beating, he is smiling serenely, but no one can wake him.
Finn’s big sister, Bianca, suspects that the beautiful sparkling book Finn got from the library has something to do with it, but the book has vanished. Does the tall mysterious stranger who first discovered Finn know more than they will admit?
Each day, more children are found frozen and Bianca realises she is running out of time. Her quest to discover the truth and rescue her little brother hurls her into a fantastical winter wonderland, full of beauty and danger, where all is not as it seems. Can Bianca save her brother and the other Ice Children before they are forever lost?
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Children’s Books for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
When reading an early digital copy, you often don’t get the illustrations that would be in the final copy, and so you almost feel like you’re missing something key. I am happy to report that within 2-3 pages, there was one of Penny’s beautiful images, and they really do add something extra to the story. It definitely brought the magic to life, and I can’t wait to see them in all their glory in the finished publication.
I read it in the space of about three hours. It was simple and age appropriate, but dark and warming, and a really fun book to read, even as an adult over 3x the recommended reading age.
I did worry at times that it might get too scary for young children, but overall I’d say it’s pitched just right. Kids love a bit of scariness, but it just stops before it goes overboard.
I love that the main protagonist is a child. As adults, we so often ignore what children have to say, when they could actually be right, and so by making the main character a child, it gives them the power that they so often deserve. It also shows the love between a brother and sister, as well as the annoyances and tiny bugbears (that feel huge at the time) that siblings so often have.
I love the description of winter in this book. I love winter, the rain, the fog, the snow, the ice, the cold – it’s beautiful, but as with all nature, it can have a dark side. And I think M.G Leonard has captured that perfectly. It’s beautiful but dangerous.
I go to books – especially kids books – for fun, entertainment, and a distraction from reality. And so when you’re enjoying a book like that, and then it suddenly starts talking about (no spoilers) a prevalent topic in real life, it kind of takes you out of the fantasy for a bit. I think maybe if it had been introduced earlier in the book, and not just tagged on near the end it might have worked better for me, to gently ease us into it. But it didn’t ruin the reading for me. And I think that kids, it’s main target audience, won’t have a problem with it. It introduces a very real worry into a fun piece of writing for them.
It’s like a cross between His Dark Materials, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Snow Queen. It takes influences from these tales, but makes them their own.
I read this just as the summer was falling into autumn, and even then it felt like a nice warming book. So I imagine it would be perfect for a cold snowy dark winters evening, when you’re all huddled around some warming hot cocoa, and reading it to your children (or to yourself).
It just reads like a fairy-tale that will become a children’s classic.
Books By Your Bedside 