The Ice Garden by Guy Jones
Published by Chicken House on February 26th 2019
ISBN: 1338285335
Pages: 272
Goodreads

This is a story of magical realism for grades 3-5.  Twelve year old Jess has extreme photosensitivity to the sun which has kept her a fixture at the hospital, needing to be completely covered when venturing outside and isolated from school or friends.  She uses story writing as a way to escape her controlled existence.  Jess has two encounters happen that allows her to expand her closed in feelings and perspective that her disease creates.   The first encounter occurs during a regular visit to the hospital when Jess wanders into the room of Davey who is unconscious.  She seems to have an immediate connection to his situation and shares stories with him, in hopes that he can hear them, whenever she visits.   The second encounter provides the magic to the story when one hot summer night she reaches her breaking point and steals outside in the night.  While at the playground, she stumbles into an ice garden where she becomes a frequent visitor and makes a friend with an ice boy.  As their friendship grows, her disease and the connections with Davey also changes, although it remains a mystery how the ice garden existed.  Was it real?  Just a story?  A hallucination?   There were some jarring shifts in Jess’s location during the demise of the ice garden making the scene confusing.  The theme and Jess’s character will hold the interest of readers and Jones’ writing is lyrical and imaginative.

Reviewed by Sheila Dube, Springvale Public Library