Twelve kinds of Ice by Ellen Bryan Obed and Barbara McClintock

This book.... it is like ice. As Laura Amy Schlitz says on the cover, "Obed's prose is crystalline: clear, pure, and entrancing." 

The words and the pictures start out delicate and get sturdier as they go along, until they are as everyday and strong as the earth beneath your feet. 

This is the story of a Maine family that looks forward to ice skating all year long. Hoping for skating ice, they pay close attention to ice formation and know every different variation.

There is a slight possibility I went a little overboard with pictures. But every time I thought I was done, I saw another picture that just had to have it's picture taken. 

The second ice--not as fragile as the skim of first ice.

Third Ice--frozen solid in the pail

Stream ice

There is something fairy like in this picture.

Black ice

And finally, what they all have been waiting for, Garden ice. Their own homemade rink in the backyard. 

Dreaming of the audiences they will have once upon a time. 

Thaw

Field ice--when a thaw quickly freezes, leaving a thick crust of ice on the snow. 

This book is charming and beautiful. 

The words are fabulous on their own, but the pictures make them entrancing.