ANGELA'S GLACIER: Don't Miss This!

Does the name of author Jordan Scott call to mind his prior picture book titles, or at least catch your ear and remind you that this is someone who makes brilliant and heart-rich stories? If not, please make it a point to remember the name now and develop that response. After his debut picture book, I TALK LIKE THE RIVER, illustrated by Sydney Smith, I have been in awe. You can check my review of that original piece HERE. You'll  see that my caption for that post said the same as this one- DO. NOT. MISS. -- his book(s). When a title captures my unconditional respect, I'll admit a quiver of concern that subsequent works might disappoint. In fact, this talented duo then produced another unforgettable picture book, MY BABA'S GARDEN,  just a few years later. It, too, evokes many layers of love, memory, and resonance while fully immersing readers in the immediate experiences depicted. 

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What strikes me about both of these gorgeous and eloquent stories is how specific yet universal they are, presenting characters and situations that may be distant from individual readers yet provide seemingly lived connections to the events and emotions within the literal stories.

The lyrical narrative of ANGELA'S GLACIER, is written by Jordan Scott but, in this case, illustrated by Diana Sudyka. This story, too, depicts an  isolated experience, and also involves a massive geographic/geologic land mass. In Iceland. With an unfamiliar language playing a critical role in the storytelling. Add this: the premise is unusual, to say the least. Any one of these could have doomed it to limited audiences or weak interests.

And yet, my reading left me feeling that I lived this story with Angela from the first word and gorgeous spread to the last. I'm certain many readers (of many ages) will finish their first reads with a deep longing to walk in Angela's footsteps and follow her example. Picture books rarely succeed at stories that span long periods of time, unless they involve a chronologic biography, but this one does. It was also useful that the page facing the title page provided a reader-friendly translation and practice text for the name of the mountain: SNAEFELLSJOKULL:  Snow Mountain's Glacier.

Once that four syllable word becomes familiar, the narrative opens at the foggy/shadowy base of the massive mountain. A new father warmly wraps and embraces his newborn daughter, Angela,  lifting her to see and sense the heart of the distant mountain just as the fog lifts. Page by page, year by year, father and daughter travel across the lava fields, lichen beds, among the snow foxes, to the blue heart of the glacier. As Angela grows, she walks alone onto glacier, repeating her father's rhythmic chanting, each syllable matching each stride, taking her closer to a place of secrets and wonder. She presses her hands, her cheek, her heart against the ice of the glacier, feeling and hearing the life within it-- rushing rivers, cracking shifts, and melting tunnels "breathing" its story to her. When the cold sends her home, she resumes daily life--  school, violin, friends, and soccer, carrying the glacier's story in her own heart. With age and added time demands, Angela feels a loss in her heart, one that can only be filled by spending time with the glacier. Again, she connects and confirms her love, making a promise-- "I will listen, I will listen, I will listen."

In the author note Scott reveals, as with earlier works, his capacity to draw on personal experiences to inspire this account. In this case, it was his meeting with the real-life Angela in Canada. Angela began listening to nature as a child, and she offers an extended essay in back pages to recount her adult trip to this Icelandic location, describing the physical and emotional connection she has with Iceland's SNAEFELLSJOKULL in more detail. Based on current climate patterns, this particular glacier may survive only a fee more decades, likely less than than two decades.Given that tragic reality, this story is an even more valuable gift to readers, and to the glacier itself.

Perhaps the connection readers will experience when reading such a very specific story, so distant from their own lives, comes from a more familiar experience. Many of us have our own particular nature-place, one that speaks to us, in the moment and in memory. This book is both a call to vicarious caring and a link to whatever our own lived experiences in nature may have provided through a similar sense of belonging and validation. At the risk of repeating myself, DO NOT MISS IT!