Customer Reviews

The Ice Boy

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A year after his father perished at sea, Edward returns to where it happened, staying with his Uncle Hodder. He still hopes to find his father because, although the boat was salvaged, no body was recovered. Straight away strange things happen. Edward meets a mysterious old man who gives him a one-word message for his son. Edward can't read it; it's in a foreign language. "My son will know you," he tells Edward. Then Edward helps an exhausted swimmer to shore and takes him to the home of the three elderly Newnes sisters, who run a B&B but are still waiting for their first guest. Over the sea Edward sees a vision of a land of ice and snow that nobody else can see and sometimes even he can't. He becomes increasingly sure he will find his father there. The swimmer gives him the opportunity to visit the land. But time is fast running out ...

This absorbing fantasy won the last Fidler Award (2001). Woven in with Edward's story is the Norse myth of the Death of Baldur. Each of the characters in the story has a counterpart in the Baldur legend.

I very much doubt this is Patricia Elliott's first book, though it's obviously her first for children or it wouldn't have been eligible for the Fidler. She has the gift of highly detailed characterisation that isn't likely to make a middle-grade reader impatient with all the description. The book is also extremely well written. I don't think there was one point in which I was jerked out of the story by bad grammar or clumsy punctuation--something that happens all too frequently these days.

Finally, as a writer for children myself, I must express my concern that the Fidler Award has been discontinued. There are already few enough awards for children's writers.