Book list
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*Starred Review* Everything about this small book is precise. Twenty short chapters introduce the different kinds of ice that take one family through the winter, while McClintock's pen-and-ink drawings, subtle yet celebratory, capture ice in all its incarnations. The first ice, you see, is a skim so thin it breaks when the children touch it. Second ice is like glass. But third ice doesn't break. The narrator and her sister hear it coming: We lay in our beds, listening to the cold cracking the maple limbs in the yard. Field ice arrives as a narrow strip. Then stream ice, when you can watch fish swim beneath the surface. Black ice is a little scarier, but it's good for skating. After the first snowfall, skating can be done at home on garden ice, made by packing the snow and turning on the hose. So it goes throughout the winter, as the family garden becomes a neighborhood hockey rink. When it's perfect, it's time for a skating party. Finally, the ice is gone. Lost mittens and pucks appear. But dream ice still exists and you can skate on it no matter what the season. Evocative and at the same time marvelously real, this is as much about expectation and the warmth to be found in family and friends as it is about cold ice. Children who don't live in a cold climate will wish they did, and everyone will find this a small gem.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2010 Booklist

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Winter on a Maine farm offers the joys of ice in all its forms. Icy childhood memories glisten in this magical series of nostalgic vignettes. From the first skim on a pail to the soft, splotchy rink surface at the end of the season, Obed recalls the delights of what others might have found a dreary season. The best thing about ice is skating: in fields, on a creek or frozen lake and, especially, on the garden rink. In a series of short scenes presented chronologically, the author describes each ice stage in vivid detail, adding suspense with a surprising midwinter thaw and peaking with an ice show. Her language shimmers and sparkles; it reads like poetry. Readers will have no trouble visualizing the mirror of black ice on a lake where their "blades spit out silver," or the "long black snake" of a garden hose used to spray the water for their homemade rink. McClintock's numerous line drawings add to the delight. They show children testing the ice in a pail, a father waltzing with a broom, joyous children gliding down a hill in a neighbor's frozen field. One double-page spread shows the narrator and her sister figure skating at night, imagining an admiring crowd. The perfect ice--and skating--of dreams concludes her catalog. Irresistible. (Memoir. 6-9)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

School Library Journal
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Gr 3-6-The coming of winter in the rural north brings ice. The first ice "came on the sheep pails.a skim of ice so thin that it broke when we touched it." Gradually as the weather grows colder, the ice becomes field ice, "short-lived but glorious.," stream ice, black ice from "water shocked still by the cold before the snow." The ice and its activities continue until finally it becomes only fond memories as the narrator and her family enjoy never melting "Dream Ice," the kind that can be skated on until the first ice came again, "a skim so thin, it broke when we touched it." The brief, lyrical vignettes evoke each and every sense as readers share the cold, feel the bumps on ice, see the creation of "oozing yellow sun spots" as ice melts, and hear music at the skating party and the noise of children playing hockey. Delicate pen-and-ink illustrations enhance the action, emotions, and humor of each short description of ice and frosty goings-on. Regardless of where readers spend their winters, they are sure to enjoy sharing the author's memories of the season in Maine in this brief but unforgettable volume.-Maria B. Salvadore, formerly at District of Columbia Public Library (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

School Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Gr 2-5-How many kinds of ice are there during the winter? It starts with that faint crinkly sheen that breaks at a touch. Gradually, however, ice spreads over fields and ponds. It grows thicker as the cold seeps deep. Finally, it's time for the family to set the boundaries, stomp the snow, spray the water, and create the ice rink that will be their entertainment center for hockey and skating until the same progression that began the ice reverses, and the world warms again. While the ice goes from a thin sheet to a frozen stream, the house becomes a warming area, a locker room, and a sports center. All activities revolve around the ice. Obed's book (Houghton Harcourt, 2012) contains 20 very short chapters that skim beautifully over each type of ice and the activities that follow. The author evokes all the senses with carefully chosen spare text. Jessica Almasy reads the story in a youthful voice, drawing listeners in until they, too, are skimming smoothly across this annual magic of the winter season. An evocative, joyful celebration of winter.-Teresa Bateman, Brigadoon Elementary, Federal Way, WA (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly
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Like a souvenir from a bygone era, this homage to rural winter celebrates the gradual freezing of barn buckets and fields, the happy heights of ice-skating season, and the inevitable spring thaw. Obed (Who Would Like a Christmas Tree?) crafts an autobiographical first-person narrative of a farm family and lists her dozen crystalline varieties in ascending order. "First Ice" glazes "the sheep pails in the barn"; a second heftier ice lifts "like panes of glass.... in our mittened hands"; another ice, thicker still, heralds after-school skating. Short-lived pleasures, like sinister see-through "black ice" on Maine's Great Pond, give way to homespun fun on a DIY rink built on the vegetable patch. McClintock (A Child's Garden of Verses) sets cozy mid-20th century scenes with her crosshatched pen-and-ink illustrations; children, bundled in woolly layers, imagine themselves Olympic figure skaters and twirl to the sound of "John Philip Sousa marches, Strauss waltzes, Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals." This quaint volume could have been written 60 years ago, alongside One Morning in Maine and The Little Island. Today's readers will marvel at the old-fashioned amusements, chronicled with folksy charm. Ages 6-9. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.