Ruby Small is a normal little girl with two “not-normal-at-all” parents. Her father is a topiary gardener and calls Ruby “Hedgeling.” Her mother is a tiara designer (well, someone has to do it), always wearing one of her own creations. On a family vacation to Norway, Ruby (in charge of the passports) asks if she can get a pet when they return. But on the trip, she meets up with an insistent little glacier that follows her everywhere. The glacier is not quite the pet she had been hoping for, but there’s no way to get rid of it. Her parents love ice-pet Cecil (named by Sven, the Norwegian tour guide). And after they return home (Cecil rides in a red cooler), Cecil proves his loyalty and worth by protecting one of the three Jennifers, Ruby’s identical dolls, during a storm. Giselle Potter’s quirky illustration style is a perfect match for Matthea Harvey’s totally odd, offbeat, amusing story in which Ruby comes to appreciate the unusual. “If you wanted to make a tiara for Cecil,” she tells her mother, “I don’t think he’d mind.” (Ages 5–8)