Ice Cream Work

Each day, Ice Cream Man gets ready for the day and heads cheerfully off to work. He has many different jobs. On Monday, “chocolate cake with ice cream” is his employment. On Tuesday, he is a party popper. Wednesday, a road cone; Thursday, a sunflower; Friday, a golf ball. The weekend is a holiday. Ice Cream Man has worked hard. He has fun! Next Monday, he heads back to work…

As you can probably tell from the summary, the plot is not this book’s strong point. Its real forte is its illustrations, created using a Japanese process called sunae (suna: sand, e: drawing). As the name suggests, each picture is composed of different shades of sand, which are applied to an adhesive surface. Naoshi uses the texture of the sand to lend a wonderful tactility to her book. In each illustration you can see the textural points of the sand; that and the soft pastel coloring lend a dreamlike quality to this whimsical story. Ice Cream Man himself is an endearing and charming character; his body and head are an ice-cream cone and a scoop of ice cream.

This surreal, childlike fantasy will appeal to everyone.