Matthea Harvey

I love Matthea Harvey's poetry for adults, especially Pity The Bathtub Its Forced Embrace Of The Human Form and her brilliant erasure collaboration Of Lamb. Her latest . . . a kids book is wonderfully, subversively funny. A pleasure for me to read aloud . . . and the boy LOVED it. Pitch perfect illustrations, too.

Aww....  I love stories where the parents are odd, and the child wants to be normal, until s/he learns a new way of finding her or his identity in the world.  Ruby wants so badly to be normal that she has named her three identical dolls The Three Jennifers" and dressed them in brown and triple-knotted their shoelaces.  And what's so ridiculous about having ice as a pet?  Cecil was calved from a berg, after all.  And ppl have calves as pets."

A weird little story about strange parents and a "normal" child who attracts a pet glacier. She can't stand the pet until he finds her lost doll at which point she finally learns to appreciate him. I loved all the details regarding how to take care of Cecil. It was easily my favorite part of the book.

A weird little story about strange parents and a "normal" child who attracts a pet glacier. She can't stand the pet until he finds her lost doll at which point she finally learns to appreciate him. I loved all the details regarding how to take care of Cecil. It was easily my favorite part of the book.