To the Ice

October 2, 2023
Married Swedish collaborators the Tidholms produce a suspenseful tale in this three-chapter polar adventure. While playing at a nearby creek, brothers Jack and Max, along with their friend Ida, who narrates, find themselves adrift on a fast-flowing current after the ice they’re walking on separates from the riverbank. Soon, their makeshift raft floats them into a featureless ocean; when the floe fetches up against an ice shelf, they start walking. Watercolor spreads depict the three youths in caps and knapsacks dwarfed by the expansive polar sky and endless fields of ice. Picnic sandwiches sustain them on their journey until they bed down in a crevice, where an apparition shows Ida the way to a wooden shelter left behind by previous explorers. There, the trio spends the winter enduring mind-numbing boredom (“We learned to braid each other’s hair. We got quite good at it”) and living off the abode’s store of fish balls. Later, equally startling developments (“To be terrified, to think that it’s all over, that you’re actually going to die”) give way to a quiet resolution in this strange, enthralling blend of survivalist realism and fantasy. Ages 6–9.

Starred review from November 1, 2023
Grades 1-4 *Starred Review* Three children--brothers Jack and Max and our narrator, Ida--find themselves adrift and alone (save for some penguins) in a polar explorer's cabin through an arduous winter, all in the course of one spring day's imaginative play. "You might not believe it's true, and we didn't believe it ourselves, not even while it was happening." But an ice chunk onto which they step "drift[s] away, slowly and almost elegantly," until the trio is at sea. Onward, fueled by sandwiches Ida remembers she'd packed, they eventually settle in a small, ramshackle house. The children spend "about a hundred years" in comfortable boredom at the hut before setting off to sea again in a handmade boat that takes them through a thunderous, terrifying storm. Home again, the lot assesses the day's adventure. "'But what shall we say if they ask where we've been?' asked Max. 'Tell the truth, ' I said. 'That we don't know.'" Written by spouses and translated from Swedish, the story rings with industrious optimism and emotional truth. Scratchy spot art, full-page illustrations, and particularly glorious frosty-toned, double-page spreads immerse readers in Ida's three-chapter tale and manage to frame their chilly environs as inviting, rather than inhospitable. Adventure-seeking readers will delight in this dramatic escapade that's sure to spark imaginative exploration, fish balls optional.

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March 1, 2024
At the start of this chapter book, three children ("Jack, Max and me, Ida") playing by a creek accidentally float away on an ice floe. The creek becomes a river, which then becomes sea; they wake surrounded by ice and decide to walk home -- but which way is home? After walking for two days, they reach land and find a dilapidated hut with cans of food, a stove, and warm animal skins. Here they spend the winter, but when spring arrives, a storm tears the hut apart. They use the wood to build a boat, then set sail, survive a terrifying storm at sea, and ultimately find their way back home. "You might not believe it's true, and we didn't believe it ourselves, not even while it was happening. But this is how it was..." Whether imagined or not, the survival tale is entirely engrossing and memorable in Ida's detailed, matter-of-fact, smoothly translated telling. The illustrations are equally successful at showing the children as small figures against vast icy backgrounds and close-up and cozy in their hut. A thrilling polar adventure for armchair travelers. Jennifer M. Brabander

(Copyright 2024 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)