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Summary
Summary
In a starred review Publishers Weekly raves: "It's an avant-garde, surrealist story with a Hollywood-style tearjerker lurking within--and a surprisingly charming and affecting one at that."
Award-winning poet Matthea Harvey and illustrator extraordinaire Giselle Potter team up to create an indescribably unique picture book about wanting to be normal, then coming to appreciate being different. Ruby would love to be like everyone else--not easy when you have a tiara-wearing mother and a father who spends his time trimming outrageous topiary. She'd also like to get a nice normal pet, maybe a dog. Then, on a family vacation to Norway, she finds herself adopted by a small, affectionate glacier. How Cecil, as the ice pet is named, proves himself to Ruby--risking his own meltdown--is a story sure to thrill and delight young readers.
Author Notes
MATTHEA HARVEY is the author of several books of poetry, including Modern Life, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and a New York Times Notable Book. Other books include a storybook called The Little General and the Giant Snowflake and an illustrated erasure, Of Lamb . Matthea teaches poetry at Sarah Lawrence and lives in Brooklyn. Learn more at mattheaharvey.com.
GISELLE POTTER's children's books include, most recently, The Orphan by Anthony Manna and Christadoula Mitakadou; The Boy Who Loved Words by Roni Schotter, a Parents' Choice Gold Award winner; Kate and the Beanstalk by Mary Pope Osborne, a Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal Best Book and an ALA-ALSC Notable Children's Book; and The Big Box by Toni Morrison. She also wrote and illustrated two autobiographical picture books, The Year I Didn't Go to School and Chloe's Birthday and Me . Giselle lives in New York's Hudson Valley with her husband and daughters. Visit her at GisellePotter.com.
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 1-3-Ruby Small is an almost-normal child living with very unusual parents. Her mother designs tiaras and is never without one. or 15. Dad is a topiary gardener, and he and her mom dance the tango in the yard on summer evenings. Ruby is mortified by their habits and prefers to play inside with her dolls, The Three Jennifers. The Jennifers and Ruby dress identically in brown pinafores, white shirts, and brown triple-knotted shoes. It's a strange life. Stranger still is their vacation. A slight misunderstanding finds them on their way to Norway instead of China. Weird at home, Ruby's parents enjoy miniature Ping-Pong on the foldout trays on the plane and drink a mixture of milk and Coke. Even the discussion about getting a pet upon their return turns bizarre. So, of course, on the trip a small pet becomes attached to Ruby and makes its way home with them. Unfortunately, it's a glacier. That's correct: a tiny piece of the Cecilsmater glacier. Predictably, Ruby is unimpressed and would just as soon ignore it. And predictably, Cecil manages to save the day and win Ruby's heart when one of the Jennifers is nearly washed away in a storm. The folk-art-style illustrations are done in pleasant watercolors and have a certain offbeat charm. However, seeing Ruby accompanied by a small, white lump on each page takes some getting used to. While attempting to cultivate an appreciation for being different, this rather unusual plot is likely to have a limited appeal.-Roxanne Burg, Orange County Public Library, CA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Potter's (The Orphan: A Cinderella Story from Greece) eerie, solemn portraits are an inspired choice for Harvey's (The Little General and the Giant Snowflake) tale of a misunderstood child and her equally misunderstood glacier. Lonely Rose has flamboyantly eccentric parents who run a topiary and tiara business; their cheerful displays of weirdness embarrass her daily. A family trip to Norway nets Rose a pet, a pint-size glacier named Cecil who follows her everywhere; Rose-who wanted a dog-scorns him. When she locks Cecil out of her room, "He would nudge the door, leaving a wet patch below the doorknob. After a bit, he would slide sadly back to his cooler." Cecil will charm readers from the start, but it's not until he performs a daring rescue-and nearly melts in the process-that Rose realizes how wrong she's been. "Help!" she orders, calling for his staple food. "I need some ice water and a plate of pebbles!" It's an avant-garde, surrealist story with a Hollywood-style tearjerker lurking within-and a surprisingly charming and affecting one at that. Ages 4-8. Agent: Sara Crowe, Harvey Klinger. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Ruby Small dreams of an inconspicuous childhood. However, her parents, a topiary artist father and tiara designer mother, revel in standing out: they tango across the front lawn, eat their food upside down, and play table tennis on airplanes. Ruby longs for a pet to keep her company -- but the glacier fragment named Cecil that follows her home from the familys Norwegian vacation is not what she had in mind. The little glacier requires special care ("Once a week, Mrs. Small would...groom him. Often hed have picked up trash from the road -- a soda can, a branch, a lottery ticket, chewed gum"), and he draws even more unwanted attention to Ruby. Some tidy foreshadowing ("rain was bad for him") precedes an act of heroism on Cecils part that shows Ruby how special her pet truly is. The text, matter-of-fact but decorated with the occasional tiara sparkle, is matched by lush, quirky watercolors that somehow give a chunk of ice lots of personality. Together text and illustration transform a familiar storybook trope -- misunderstood outcast proves his worth -- into something indelible, precise, and strangely elegant. thom barthelmess (c) Copyright 2012. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Ruby's father, Mr. Small, is a topiary gardener and Mrs. Small, a tiara designer. They mostly have eyes for each other, leaving Ruby to care for her identical dolls, the three Jennifers. On a trip to Norway, Ruby acquires a pet. Though she wanted a dog, she attracts a small piece of glacier, Cecil. Ruby doesn't consider Cecil much of a pet and tries to rid herself of him, especially on the playground. Occasionally he melts (or is he weeping?). Then one of the Jennifers is lost, and to Ruby's amazement, it's Cecil who finds her. Some may frown at the fact that Cecil only gets a Ruby-made tiara after he proves useful to her, but the story is so delightfully odd, why try and draw morals from it? Potter's stylized art, with its deadpan characterizations, proves the perfect pairing for a text that provides her the opportunity to draw a father who cuts a crocodile into his beard. Quirky in the best sense, this shows that not all families are alike and, if properly cared for, miniglaciers make good pets.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2010 Booklist