The Freeze changed everything: Winter has lasted for months and might herald a new ice age, and nobody knows how it's going to end--all sixth grader Louisa wants is answers. Stuck in her apartment with her firefighter dad, little brother, and mom while grieving the loss of her grandmother, Louisa's life feels oppressive. Downstairs live her father's best friend, Brian; his wife, Alesha; and their son, Luke. When Brian suffers an accident that causes memory loss, Luke, Louisa's classmate and estranged former best friend, needs escape too. Despite the tension, they set to work building a house of snow and ice in their backyard but soon discover strange magic inside it that could change the course of both their lives. While parallels can be drawn with current events, a greater strength lies in accepting the Freeze as a problem to be taken on its own terms. Sherwood shows with gentleness and realism how happiness, creativity, and humor exist alongside tragedy and upheaval. People's lives carry on even as Louisa, Luke, and their families find those lives, in their well-realized, unnamed city, unimaginably altered. Louisa is a pragmatic hero, interested in architecture and problem-solving. Through her family and renewed friendship with effusive, kind Luke, she realizes that even the worst changes can be built around and healed from. Most main characters read White; Luke is biracial (Alesha is Black and Jamaican, and Brian is White). A timely exploration of climate, grief, and change. (Eco-fantasy. 8-12) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Gr 5 Up--A gentle middle grade debut in a near-future dystopia where climate change affects everyone, and life is full of changes,. Six months ago the world got covered in snow, and it just never stopped coming down. People are calling it the Freeze, and there's rumors it's a new Ice Age. Sixth grader Louisa has been stuck at home ever since, as the city has deemed being outside unsafe. Online learning, plus a younger brother who's struggling with cabin fever, a mom affected by grief, and a dad who works long hours, means life is hard for everyone. When a family friend, Louisa's former good friend Luke's dad, is struck on the head and loses his memory, the two children decide to build a snow fort as a way to escape their harsh realities, and their friendship slowly rekindles. A bit of magical realism appears inside the structure, and Louisa and Luke make it their special getaway place, where no one else is allowed inside. The story has an overall slow pace, and the reality of the Freeze has clear COVID-19 pandemic analogies. Every character in this book, even those in the periphery, seems to be struggling, and the plot can only be described as bleak. The little magic that the main characters experience doesn't amount to much of anything, which in addition to the rushed ending, can leave readers wanting more. VERDICT Purchase for upper elementary and middle schools where there is interest in pandemic stories and dystopia.--Carol Youssif, Taipei American Sch., Taiwan

In the six months since worldwide weather phenomenon "the Freeze" began, sixth grader Lou has tired of living through a "historic moment": attending school remotely alienates her from friends Priya and Nellie, food deliveries arrive less and less frequently, and her Nana died after slipping on ice, devastating Lou's artist mother. When an iced-over branch hits the family's neighbor--the folk musician father of Lou's former friend Luke--it causes memory loss, a tragedy that catalyzes Lou, cued as white, to again spend time with Luke, who is of Jamaican descent. Inspired by a school architecture project and wanting an escape from their respective situations, the pair builds a house of ice and snow in their apartment building's backyard. While enjoying their new refuge, the two find that the ceiling appears to offer visions of a hopeful future--one in which Lou's mom is happier and Luke's dad makes music again. Sherwood's lightly magical debut deftly mixes tween friendship difficulties and familial frustrations with an alternate reality that mirrors pandemic schooling, engagingly exploring the loneliness of an event that requires insular experiences--a feeling with which many readers will relate. Ages 8--12. Agent: Steven Malk, Writers House. (Nov.)