Ice in the Jungle

Ice is very much less than thrilled when her mum says they are to move from the North Pole to a different country far away.  She will miss her friends, and she really doesn’t want to go.  The trip is long and difficult, and the new country is hot and full of strange animals very unlike polar bears – hippos and elephants and giraffes.  At school, Ice cannot understand anything the other children say to her, and when they give her a banana as a sign of trying to make friends, she tastes it and finds it very unlike fish.  Will Ice adjust to her new surroundings?  Of course she will, and the expected happy ending makes all right.  It is the pictures that make this book highly memorable.  Full of imaginative illustrations such as Ice and her mum taking a whale as a mode of transport to the new country and an elephant on roller skates becoming a bus, the cold blues and whites of the North Pole turn into the bright oranges, yellows and reds of the jungle country.  Ice has a toy fish that she carries everywhere with her, and this provides comfort and solace when she is unhappy.  We can well understand why her mum’s hug is the only familiar thing she feels in this new place, but we also find there is hope in new friends.  Hofmann-Maniyar is a new talent to enjoy.