Title: Phillipa Knickerbocker Glory and the Ice Cream Castle
Author: Sarahjane Funnell
Illustrator: Annie Bilsby
Year published: 2011
Publisher: Gibson Publishing
Number of pages: 32
Recommended age: 4+
Daughter Rating: ★★★★☆
Grown-up Rating: ★★★★☆
Reviewed by: Renee and Danielle (Mother and Daughter)
Summary (from back cover): Phillipa loves ice cream. She loves ice cream almost as much as she loves her pet cat Little Miss Whiskers. Little Miss Whiskers is her fluffy white cat with a purple collar and bell. She doesn’t like ice cream at all but loves nothing more than to curl up into a ball and fall fast asleep on the end of Phillipa’s bed.
One day Phillipa Knickerbocker Glory and Little Miss Whiskers embark on a deliciously exciting journey . Through a secret tunnel, they enter a magical dreamland where they find the Ice Cream Castle and discover every flavour of ice cream imaginable. The Ice Cream Castle seems like a dream come true but will it be just how Phillipa imagined? With all that ice cream, will she and Little Miss Whiskers ever want to go home?
Find out just what happens in this deliciously delightful adventure…
DAUGHTER SAYS
What it’s about: This book is about a girl, Phillipa, who loves ice cream and her cat, Little Miss Whiskers, who hates ice cream. One day when Phillipa is eating her ice cream, she doesn’t know what colour to taste first, dips her spoon in, and tastes it. When she opens her eyes, she is in an ice cream tunnel. When she goes down the tunnel, she gets to an Ice Cream Castle where she meets the Ice Cream Queen.
What I liked and disliked about it: I like that my Mom had a lot of trouble pronouncing the title. She would say Phillipa Kickerbocker Gory or Phlippa Bockerknicker Bory and other crazy things. It was funny. I liked the idea of an ice cream land and I wish I could go there because I would lick the trees and grass and rivers. I have tried closing my eyes when I was eating ice cream because I want to go so badly to ice cream land. I’ll try again tonight.
I liked the pictures in the book and I think that little girls would really like the pictures. But, I thought that the Ice Cream Queen looked a little weird. I would have liked it better if she was made out of ice cream too, then I might have eaten her too if I was in ice cream land. In one of the pictures (on p. 17), Phillipa is much bigger than the ice cream houses and the doors of the house. She should have been drawn smaller.
My bottom line: I think little girls would like this book and even I (being 9) sort of liked it and I would even read the next one. I would recommend it to girls 10 and under.
MOM SAYS
What it’s about: Phillipa Knickerbocker Glory and the Ice Cream Castle introduces us to the title character, a little girl who LOVES ice cream and her cat, Little Miss Whiskers who despises ice cream. Every Saturday, Phillipa dons her ice-cream tiara to sit down to a Knickerbocker Glory – a colourful and tasty concoction of various kinds of ice cream, sauces, and sprinkles. But one day, Phillipa is whisked off to another world where everything is made up of ice cream, wafers, and a variety of toppings. In this world, she enters the Ice Cream Castle to meet a beautifulQueen who tells her that she, Phillipa, can stay and be the castle’s new ice cream tester. Is this a dream come true for Phillipa or will it turn out to be a nightmare?
What I liked and disliked about it: This is a beautifully illustrated book with a clever story that will play to the imagination of young girls everywhere. What child doesn’t dream of going to an Ice Cream Land where there is every flavour of ice cream and variety of toppings imagineable? And, the Knickerbocker Glory – that awesomely delicious-sounding ice cream dessert – had our mouths salivating reading about it. Can you tell that we too love ice cream in our house?
I would say that the story itself in this book would be very appealing to young girls. It features all the typical things that little girls like: pink and purple hues throughout the book, fluffy cats, tiaras, castles, and queens. It is truly a very girlie book. This book felt surprisingly lengthy. On the one hand, there are only 21 pages of text, but the word density is quite high (as high as 125-ish words on a single page). It was interesting because my daughter thought it would be too young for her, but she was surprised that it wasn’t too young. We both agree that there is some complexity in the plot which may make it difficult for very young (under 4 or 5) readers to fully grasp. And there is that issue of attention span…the book took a bit longer to read than we thought it would. This was not a problem – in fact, in this case, this was a good thing because my daughter is older and is looking for more complexity in books. That being said, while she enjoyed it, it really is intended for younger girls.
I have mixed feelings about the illustrations. On the one hand, they are so girlie and kid-friendly. The illustrations of Phillipa are adorable, the backgrounds in some of the illustrations are very detailed and eye-catching, and the images of Ice Cream Land are ok, but not mind-blowing. The best ones are of Phillipa and Little Miss Whiskers – I think little girls would find them both totally cute. I agree with my daughter that some of the things in the illustrations seem out of proportion. For example, the spoon on the cover is HUGE while Phillipa’s fingers are tiny. The tiara also appears to change size in different pictures. Sorry, just my perfectionist, @nal-retentiveness emerging…
My bottom line: Even though my daughter does not fall within the target audience (she’s a bit too old), she did still enjoy the book. I really enjoyed it as well. It is a very, very girlie book so I would recommend it to girls aged 4 and up.
*** Phillipa Knickerbocker Glory and the Ice Cream Castle was provided to us free-of-charge by the author in exchange for an honest review.***
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