Cecil the Pet Glacier by Matthea Harvey, Giselle Potter
My rating: 5/5 cats
i love matthea harvey. i was so excited to see she had a book i had never heard of, i didn’t even care that is was a picture book instead of another shiny book of poetry. she manages to make even books for little people as enchanting and eerie as her adult work.
this is a story of a little girl who just wants to be normal, but is saddled with two eccentric parents: her father designs topiary animals, and her mother makes tiaras. they drink milk-and-cokes, play ping-pong on airplanes, and take exotic vacations. poor kid, right? but ruby just wants to play with her identical jennifer dolls, in their matching brown dresses. she wants to have real friends. but her parents’ public tango-ing make them, and by association, ruby, objects of playground derision. on vacation in norway, which her parents misunderstood her to say when she actually said “no way” to a topiary tour of china, she voices the wish for a pet. like a dog. her parents keep trying to push the idea of pet jellyfish, or a retired flea circus, but ruby just wants a normal, regular, pet, sheesh.
unfortunately, when they are snowmobiling through the tundra, a baby glacier takes a shine to ruby, and follows her home. at first, ruby is resentful—here is just one more thing to set her apart from normal kids. she tries to ignore the glacier, cecil, but he is a persistent and very winning glacier, and eventually, ruby will come to understand that “different” is not something to fear, and that sometimes love is unconventional.
i also love the artwork by giselle potter. it is the perfect accompaniment to matthea harvey’s quirky prose, and those dolls kinda creep me out.
very charming, and has a lot of grown-up appeal. maybe even more than kiddiwinx-appeal.
and now i want a pet glacier, please…
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