MICE ON ICE

The latest collaboration from the father-and-daughter team is nice indeed.

Beginning with its title, this very beginning reader employs a controlled, rhyming text to tell the story of mice who strap on ice skates and joyfully glide across the ice. Bright, colorful cut-paper and digital illustrations adopt a perspective that enables readers to see the increasingly intricate tracings left on the ice by the skates. Then, three successive pages read, “Someone is waiting. / What is this? / What is that?” and careful readers will see that the marks of the tracings have come together to look like the outline of a cat’s face. Rather inexplicably, the page turn then reveals a cat in full color, accompanied by the words, “That is a cat.” Ensuing pages show the cat merrily skating along with the mice, who don’t seem to be the least bit afraid. “The cat with a hat skates with mice on ice. / Nice!” read the concluding lines, putting a cheery, if not particularly exciting, end to the book.

An accessible, inviting title for brand new readers.