For Claire Boucher, life is all about skating on the frozen cow pond and in the annual Maple Show right before the big pancake breakfast on her family's farm. But all that changes when Russian skating coach Andrei Grosheva offers Claire a scholarship to train with the elite in Lake Placid. Tossed into a world of mean girls on ice, where competition is everything, Claire realizes that her sweet dream come true has sharper edges than she could have imagined. Can she find the strength to stand up to the people who want to see her fail and the courage to decide which dream she wants to follow?
Sugar and Ice
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Book Description
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best Books of the Month, December 2010: In Sugar and Ice figure skating dreams come true when Claire Boucher is spotted at her small town's Maple Show by a big-time skating coach. Claire isn't sure she's ready for competitive skating, but a scholarship to the elite Lake Placid training camp is too great an opportunity to pass up. Making friends, handling bullies in her skating class, and the high standards of her demanding new coach--who insists she can land a double toe loop--are challenges Claire must face alone, far from the comfort of her family's maple farm activities and her childhood friends. Sugar and Ice is a sweet but never saccharine story of a small-town girl who follows a dream and learns she is capable of more than she ever imagined both on and off the ice. --Seira Wilson
From School Library Journal
Gr 5-7–Claire Boucher is a busy seventh grader. She not only balances school with the responsibilities of work on her family farm, especially now that the maple sap is running, but also coaches young skaters at the nearby skating school. On the day that this delightful novel opens, she is rushing to get ready for the annual Maple Show. While she's aware that a famous Russian skating coach will be scouting, she is not hopeful that he's there for her. Competition terrifies her. But she lands her double toe loop and is offered a scholarship to the summer program at Lake Placid. But how can Claire ask her already busy parents to make the hour and a half drive three days a week? Does she really want to compete? Is she squandering her incredible talent if she chooses not to accept the offer? Messner has a flair for depicting engaging characters who are imperfect without being quirky. The dialogue between classmates and siblings is realistic, and the intergenerational or extended family relationships are interesting. The author shows the intensity of the world of competitive skating without dwelling on its rough edges, making it accessible not only to tween readers, but also to those who might have Olympic aspirations. There's a neat little twist in the plot and an ending that is sure to both surprise and resonate.–Brenda Kahn, Tenakill Middle School, Closter, NJ. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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More About the Author
Kate Messner is the award-winning author of more than a dozen current and forthcoming books for young readers. Her first novel, The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z., won the 2010 E.B. White Read-Aloud Medal for Older Readers, while its follow-up, Sugar and Ice (Walker/Bloomsbury, 2010), was a Junior Library Guild selection. Kate is also the author of the popular Marty McGuire chapter book series and Silver Jaguar Society mysteries with Scholastic. Her pictures books with Chronicle Books include SeaMonster's First Day and Over and Under the Snow, an E.B. White Read Aloud Honor Book and NY Times and ALSC Notable book. Kate is a former middle school English teacher who also wrote REAL REVISION: AUTHORS' STRATEGIES TO SHARE WITH STUDENT WRITERS, a book about the revision process for teachers and writers (Stenhouse, 2011) Kate lives on Lake Champlain with her family, where she enjoys spending time outside biking, hiking, swimming in the summer, skiing and skating in the winter. Of course, she also loves curling up with a good book any day of the year. Follow her on Twitter @KateMessner and learn more at her website: http://www.katemessner.com.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
wonderful book about friendship and discovering your inner strength
December 7, 2010
Format:Hardcover
I adored reading this book and can't wait to share it! Sugar and Ice explores one girl's decision to follow her love of ice skating and accept a scholarship to a prestigious training center. She adjusts to her new routine, where skating lessons take up every ounce of free time. But it's harder to adjust to a new group of friends. I think Kids will love exploring what it means to start competing in major shows, how Claire has to figure out how to skate in her head and master the butterflies in her stomach, and how to handle the mean, super-competitive girls she's now skating with.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
By S. Su
Format:Hardcover
If all middle grade were written as well as this, I think I just might read middle grade forever. Kate Messner's second novel is just as fun, heartfelt, and engrossing as her first. It sent me in ecstacies of delight over how much I loved it!
Claire Boucher loves two things: her family's maple syrup farm and competitive ice-skating. So when she gets the chance to train at the Lake Placid Olympic Training Facility with a world-class coach, she is simultaneously terrified and excited. Making the commitment to the sport involves sacrifices--time with her family and best friend, long commutes several days a week--but it's also a dream come true for her.
Or is it? The more Claire immerses herself in the competitive ice-skating world, the more she realizes how cutthroat it is. Some of the girls who train with her would do almost anything to make it big, and Claire must decide just how much she's willing to sacrifice for her ice-skating dreams.
I don't know much about either collecting sap or ice-skating, but SUGAR AND ICE made me wish I were Claire. She is a delightful protagonist, full of love for her friends, family, and passion, but also young enough to experience the vulnerabilities of dealing with new situations. Her love for ice-skating is so inspiring--Kate Messner describes the skating scenes beautifully--that when she is knocked down by the cutthroat attitude of the ice-skating world, it breaks your heart. I constantly wanted to reach into the book and help Claire out a little: no, don't listen to that girl, she's just jealous of you! Skate for yourself and forget about how others might be judging you!
Supporting characters are colorful and varied. In particular, Tasanee, Claire's good training friend, is Asian, and likes to read popular paranormal YA. I dare you to go into this book and try to figure out which books she reads. So the friends are well-developed, but the mean girls, to my delight, are, too. There's a reason why people turn out mean, and in SUGAR AND ICE we see the different ways that meanness can exert itself, and what drives the girls to desperate measures.
Overall, SUGAR AND ICE is just so wonderfully heartwarming and real. It will remind you of the best and worst of middle-grade girls without the pettiness that sometimes crops up in this age group. Readers of all ages will fall in love with Claire and Kate Messner's writing!
Claire Boucher loves two things: her family's maple syrup farm and competitive ice-skating. So when she gets the chance to train at the Lake Placid Olympic Training Facility with a world-class coach, she is simultaneously terrified and excited. Making the commitment to the sport involves sacrifices--time with her family and best friend, long commutes several days a week--but it's also a dream come true for her.
Or is it? The more Claire immerses herself in the competitive ice-skating world, the more she realizes how cutthroat it is. Some of the girls who train with her would do almost anything to make it big, and Claire must decide just how much she's willing to sacrifice for her ice-skating dreams.
I don't know much about either collecting sap or ice-skating, but SUGAR AND ICE made me wish I were Claire. She is a delightful protagonist, full of love for her friends, family, and passion, but also young enough to experience the vulnerabilities of dealing with new situations. Her love for ice-skating is so inspiring--Kate Messner describes the skating scenes beautifully--that when she is knocked down by the cutthroat attitude of the ice-skating world, it breaks your heart. I constantly wanted to reach into the book and help Claire out a little: no, don't listen to that girl, she's just jealous of you! Skate for yourself and forget about how others might be judging you!
Supporting characters are colorful and varied. In particular, Tasanee, Claire's good training friend, is Asian, and likes to read popular paranormal YA. I dare you to go into this book and try to figure out which books she reads. So the friends are well-developed, but the mean girls, to my delight, are, too. There's a reason why people turn out mean, and in SUGAR AND ICE we see the different ways that meanness can exert itself, and what drives the girls to desperate measures.
Overall, SUGAR AND ICE is just so wonderfully heartwarming and real. It will remind you of the best and worst of middle-grade girls without the pettiness that sometimes crops up in this age group. Readers of all ages will fall in love with Claire and Kate Messner's writing!
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
They say to write what you know. We've all heard that line. It's bounced about countless writing groups. But there's an unspoken rule amongst children that's as pervasive as it is harmful: Read what you know. If you're a soccer fan, only read soccer books. If you like ballet, get a whole bunch of ballet books. Librarians, teachers, and parents can spend countless hours fighting against the sometimes innate understanding some children have acquired that dictates that they can't read about anything outside of the realm of their own (limited) experience. This might be understandable if you were dealing with a writer that played by his or her own rules and failed to let child readers in on the fun, but it's absolutely ridiculous when you're dealing with a book like Kate Messner's Sugar and Ice. Authors that commit to creating worlds that are outside the experience of your average everyday kid and yet are accessible enough for ALL children to enjoy are rare, but they're out there. Sugar and Ice is out there. And you don't have to be a fan of ice skating, Fibonacci, beekeeping, or sugar tapping to enjoy it (though it probably wouldn't hurt if you were).
For Claire Boucher life is pretty simple. Practice skating on the local cow pond. Help out at the small ice skating rink when possible. And for fun, do a segment during the local competition's Maple Festival. All that changes when Claire's routine for fun catches the eye of big-time muckety muck trainer Andrei Groshev. Groshev has a deal for Claire. He's offering her a scholarship to train with other students like herself for huge ice skating competitions. In return, Claire will have to sacrifice the life she's always known. Not a natural competitor, Claire accepts then almost immediately wonders what she's gotten herself into. Most of the kids are nice, but some are jealous of her talent. She hardly has time to do schoolwork as well as training, and worst of all someone is sabotaging her equipment and confidence. In the end, Claire needs to determine if she's got what it takes to be a serious contender, or if she's just gonna go back to her cow pond and forget any of this ever happened.
Let's go back to what I was saying earlier about authors who commit to distinct, one-of-a-kind worlds. In the case of this particular book, Ms. Messner has brought the world of competitive ice skating to real and vibrant life. I think a lot of kids have shared in the experience of watching ice skaters during the Olympics leap, and often fall, in their attempts to nab the gold. There's a very real drama there. But even if you're dealing with a child who has only the haziest understand of ice skating, Claire's life is going to ring true for them. That's because Ms. Messner commits to the bit. She's going to use emotional situations that everyone can relate to and then work in real facts about skating in the gaps. The result is that even though I don't know a triple lutz from a double axel, I can follow this story. The result is that the reader gets the same experience they would have if they read something like Jane Smiley's The Georges and the Jewels about horse training. You don't have to know, or even be interested in, the material when things start. What's important is that the author takes a hold of your heart from the beginning and doesn't let go. Messner does this beautifully.
Such writing usually begins with a main character you can believe in. Claire Boucher's voice is written in the first person throughout this story. Claire is the kind of girl who doesn't like professional competition, so right there Messner had the goal of keeping Claire from sounding whiny. This is a difficult thing to do. If your protagonist has to overcome an obstacle and they keep talking about it, the danger is that your readership is going to get fed up with her and throw the book against a wall. Fortunately for everyone, Ms. Messner makes you really like Claire long before her insecurities take hold. She even works in little details about Claire that affect your view of her, like the fact that what really gets our heroine's blood running hot is skating to the Indiana Jones theme song. I appreciate the non-girlyness of that choice. It's a kickin' sequence and you feel a little jolt of hope after it's done.
As I read the story, I was fascinated to find that I expected everything to have been wrapped up on page 186. This is partly because I didn't really realize that the book is part journey, part mystery. Booktalkers of this title might want to play up the mystery aspect when selling it to kids. I mean somebody is messing up Claire's outfits and doing everything possible to keep her from competing. The fact that Claire points the finger at the wrong person for much of this book is just a red herring. The real culprit is far sneakier. I'd love to interview some kid after they read this book to see if any of them guessed the identity of the real bad guy.
Librarians reading the book will appreciate the references to everything from Schoolhouse Rock to Hattie Big Sky. Kids reading the book will appreciate that the author knows how to speak to more than just ice skating fans. Don't get me wrong... for fans of ice skating this book is nothing short of a dream come true. If I don't see a copy of this book in every single ice skater's gym bag by the end of December I will eat my proverbial hat. But there's a lot of rich writing at work here, above and beyond the obvious plot elements. It's got a relatable heroine, three-dimensional villains, a rags to riches element, some convincingly exhausting sequences, and an ending that will probably catch a couple folks by surprise, both in terms of the villain's reveal and the heroine's final decision. Publishers like to bandy about the term "strong middle grade" to describe books, but it's not always accurate. Consider this book, then, a definite contender in the "strong middle grade" ring. A title that remains in your mind long after you've put it down.
For ages 9-12.
For Claire Boucher life is pretty simple. Practice skating on the local cow pond. Help out at the small ice skating rink when possible. And for fun, do a segment during the local competition's Maple Festival. All that changes when Claire's routine for fun catches the eye of big-time muckety muck trainer Andrei Groshev. Groshev has a deal for Claire. He's offering her a scholarship to train with other students like herself for huge ice skating competitions. In return, Claire will have to sacrifice the life she's always known. Not a natural competitor, Claire accepts then almost immediately wonders what she's gotten herself into. Most of the kids are nice, but some are jealous of her talent. She hardly has time to do schoolwork as well as training, and worst of all someone is sabotaging her equipment and confidence. In the end, Claire needs to determine if she's got what it takes to be a serious contender, or if she's just gonna go back to her cow pond and forget any of this ever happened.
Let's go back to what I was saying earlier about authors who commit to distinct, one-of-a-kind worlds. In the case of this particular book, Ms. Messner has brought the world of competitive ice skating to real and vibrant life. I think a lot of kids have shared in the experience of watching ice skaters during the Olympics leap, and often fall, in their attempts to nab the gold. There's a very real drama there. But even if you're dealing with a child who has only the haziest understand of ice skating, Claire's life is going to ring true for them. That's because Ms. Messner commits to the bit. She's going to use emotional situations that everyone can relate to and then work in real facts about skating in the gaps. The result is that even though I don't know a triple lutz from a double axel, I can follow this story. The result is that the reader gets the same experience they would have if they read something like Jane Smiley's The Georges and the Jewels about horse training. You don't have to know, or even be interested in, the material when things start. What's important is that the author takes a hold of your heart from the beginning and doesn't let go. Messner does this beautifully.
Such writing usually begins with a main character you can believe in. Claire Boucher's voice is written in the first person throughout this story. Claire is the kind of girl who doesn't like professional competition, so right there Messner had the goal of keeping Claire from sounding whiny. This is a difficult thing to do. If your protagonist has to overcome an obstacle and they keep talking about it, the danger is that your readership is going to get fed up with her and throw the book against a wall. Fortunately for everyone, Ms. Messner makes you really like Claire long before her insecurities take hold. She even works in little details about Claire that affect your view of her, like the fact that what really gets our heroine's blood running hot is skating to the Indiana Jones theme song. I appreciate the non-girlyness of that choice. It's a kickin' sequence and you feel a little jolt of hope after it's done.
As I read the story, I was fascinated to find that I expected everything to have been wrapped up on page 186. This is partly because I didn't really realize that the book is part journey, part mystery. Booktalkers of this title might want to play up the mystery aspect when selling it to kids. I mean somebody is messing up Claire's outfits and doing everything possible to keep her from competing. The fact that Claire points the finger at the wrong person for much of this book is just a red herring. The real culprit is far sneakier. I'd love to interview some kid after they read this book to see if any of them guessed the identity of the real bad guy.
Librarians reading the book will appreciate the references to everything from Schoolhouse Rock to Hattie Big Sky. Kids reading the book will appreciate that the author knows how to speak to more than just ice skating fans. Don't get me wrong... for fans of ice skating this book is nothing short of a dream come true. If I don't see a copy of this book in every single ice skater's gym bag by the end of December I will eat my proverbial hat. But there's a lot of rich writing at work here, above and beyond the obvious plot elements. It's got a relatable heroine, three-dimensional villains, a rags to riches element, some convincingly exhausting sequences, and an ending that will probably catch a couple folks by surprise, both in terms of the villain's reveal and the heroine's final decision. Publishers like to bandy about the term "strong middle grade" to describe books, but it's not always accurate. Consider this book, then, a definite contender in the "strong middle grade" ring. A title that remains in your mind long after you've put it down.
For ages 9-12.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
awsome
this is so good every person on the universe should have a copy of this awsome amazing and encouraging book!!!!!!! Read more
Published 2 months ago by mike alvis
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great story
Great middle-grade novel. I borrowed it from my 8-year-old niece after she said she liked it. I enjoyed the figure skating element and cared about the characters. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Lisa
3.0 out of 5 stars
Cute
Very cute, I would have loved reading this a few years ago. But as a skater myself, some of the ideas used were either unrealistic or inaccurate. Read more
Published 16 months ago by BooBooBear
4.0 out of 5 stars
Figuring out where you fit
Claire thought she had middle school all figured out. She was looking forward to hanging out with her best friend, figure skating, being a junior coach, and helping out on her... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Jennifer Donovan
5.0 out of 5 stars
Courtesy of Teens Read Too
Claire has so much going on with her skating, coaching young skaters, school work, working on her family's farm, and hanging out with her friends. Read more
Published 23 months ago by TeensReadToo
4.0 out of 5 stars
Skating and bad girls
Sugar and Ice by Kate Messner follows thirteen year old Claire as she receives a scholarship to work with a prestigious figure skating coach. Read more
Published on January 26, 2011 by S. Power
5.0 out of 5 stars
a new star on ice - not just for skaters!
This is a great book for those who like competitive sports or arts-related activities. Also those who like rags-to-riches stories, star-is-born stories, or just plain terrifically... Read more
Published on December 11, 2010 by Jenny
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