Hello, friends! Today’s book is Ice Boy by David Ezra Stein, the wild adventure of a little ice cube’s journey through the different states of matter.

Ice Boy lives in the freezer of a refrigerator with his family, waking up every day and doing the simple things that ice cubes do. But while the rest of his family hopes to one day be chosen, to cool a drink or even maybe be a cold compress, Ice Boy longs for something more. So even though he’s not supposed to, he sneaks out of his ice box and into the sun. He makes it all the way to the beach, where he wades into the waves and becomes… Water Boy! He enjoys his time as a drop in the ocean, eventually washing up onto a towel and enjoying the rays of sunshine that warm him, evaporating into… Vapor Boy! Where will Ice/Water/Vapor Boy’s journeys lead him next? Follow him up into the clouds and see!

This was a sort of strange but sort of cool story about what has to be a rare subject for a picture book: the various states of matter. And in this aspect, it’s wonderful. Ice Boy’s transformations from solid to liquid to vapor to liquid to solid and so on are very informative and fun to follow. The illustrations are good, though occasionally a bit difficult to make out. The only strange thing was the ice family’s devotion to being “chosen”; it seemed vaguely creepy and, well, sounded a whole lot like martyrdom. Otherwise, the length was good, and JJ enjoyed it very much. So overall, Baby Bookworm approved!