Ruby Small is a normal little girl with two “not-normal-at-all” parents. Her father is a topiary gardener and calls Ruby “Hedgeling.” Her mother is a tiara designer (well, someone has to do it), always wearing one of her own creations. On a family vacation to Norway, Ruby (in charge of the passports) asks if she can get a pet when they return. But on the trip, she meets up with an insistent little glacier that follows her everywhere. The glacier is not quite the pet she had been hoping for, but there’s no way to get rid of it. Her parents love ice-pet Cecil (named by Sven, the Norwegian tour guide). And after they return home (Cecil rides in a red cooler), Cecil proves his loyalty and worth by protecting one of the three Jennifers, Ruby’s identical dolls, during a storm. Giselle Potter’s quirky illustration style is a perfect match for Matthea Harvey’s totally odd, offbeat, amusing story in which Ruby comes to appreciate the unusual. “If you wanted to make a tiara for Cecil,” she tells her mother, “I don’t think he’d mind.” (Ages 5–8)

In a starred review Publishers Weekly raves: "It's an avant-garde, surrealist story with a Hollywood-style tearjerker lurking within--and a surprisingly charming and affecting one at that."

Award-winning poet Matthea Harvey and illustrator extraordinaire Giselle Potter team up to create an indescribably unique picture book about wanting to be normal, then coming to appreciate being different. Ruby would love to be like everyone else--not easy when you have a tiara-wearing mother and a father who spends his time trimming outrageous topiary. She'd also like to get a nice normal pet, maybe a dog. Then, on a family vacation to Norway, she finds herself adopted by a small, affectionate glacier. How Cecil, as the ice pet is named, proves himself to Ruby--risking his own meltdown--is a story sure to thrill and delight young readers.