Skating Wild on an Inland Sea
by Jean E. Pendziwol; illus. by Todd Stewart
Primary    Groundwood    32 pp.
10/23    9781773067049    $19.99
e-book ed.  9781773067056    $16.99

“Listen! / Lake Superior / sings a winter song.” Getting all bundled up, two children set off early on a cold morning to go ice skating. Fog rises from mysterious Superior, and along the way they find wolf tracks, but the older sibling can tell that the tracks are old, a “story” written in the snow. Canadian author Pendziwol writes evocatively about the immense and imposing lake and the sounds the ice makes vibrating under the children’s feet as they skate: “mysterious magical music / as old as the earth… / We join the song, / skating / on the wild ice / of a vast / inland sea.” (She also makes sure to mention that the ice on the lake is very thick.) Illustrator Stewart uses a range of blues and greens, from the intense turquoise of the frozen lake to a chilly blue against the snowy whites. His technique of drawing digitally, editing in Photoshop, and adding textures with scanned screens gives the book a vibrant and often majestic feel, ending with a wolf looking straight at the reader.

From the November/December 2023 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.