By Robert Swindells - Ice Palace (Young Puffin) (New Ed) Paperback – 11 Nov. 1992

I use this as a class reader for Y3. The plot is simple: a boy goes to rescue his little brother who was stolen away in the night by the evil Starjik. There are lots of drawings in the book to fascinate the children and are themselves great points of discussion. The story is very well written, not too scary, with lots of simple but effective figurative language to discuss and magpie for own use. The message of the book is one of bravery, good overcoming bad and that love can melt the coldest of hearts.There is a beautiful twist to the end of the tale :)Buy with confidence.

I have just read this super book to my mixed year3/4 class. We loved it. It is full of super description and adventure. It has a few scary and dark moments, which we loved. My class gave it 5 stars. A super read.

This is a short, pacy and exciting adventure story. The vocabulary and imagery is fantastic and would lend itself well to Year 3 / Year 4 classroom usage. There is real excitement, peril and danger and this book would be fantastic to read aloud - there is even an exciting twist in the tale at the end. Recommended, especially for reading aloud in the classroom.

The book is like a piece of art, written in the way that the reader can imagine every scene that they reading about. At the same time not too heavy on young reader. My 8 years old son loved it. Even though it was a bit scary at places it never crossed the line. Great introduction of a more mature prose to the younger readers.The story so original and different. Highly recommended

Love this snowy story. It was a recommended text for teaching adventure stories but I'd never heard of it. It has beautiful vocabulary and descriptive phrases and enough peril to keep the children engaged. It centres on a boy called Ivan who faces many obstacles in the search for his brother. The book is quite short and each chapter can be used for different types of writing. The ending of the story did surprise me.

Read this to my 7 year old daughter - who enjoyed it. Christmassy twist at the end makes it a good book to read in the run up to Christmas.

This is the third time i have bought this book. Each time it was extremely well read to my children at school. My favourite childrens book.

Bought for a year 4 class (8-9 years) it was a great read for both boys and girls. Including themes of loss, discovery, redemption, prejudice and adventure, this proved the basis for four weeks of in depth literacy that engaged the children from start to finish, challenging their pre-conceived ideas and opinions along the way.