For Claire Boucher, life is all about skating on the frozen cow pond and in the annual Maple Show right before the big pancake breakfast on her family's farm. But all that changes when Russian skating coach Andrei Grosheva offers Claire a scholarship to train with the elite in Lake Placid. Tossed into a world of mean girls on ice, where competition is everything, Claire realizes that her sweet dream come true has sharper edges than she could have imagined. Can she find the strength to stand up to the people who want to see her fail and the courage to decide which dream she wants to follow? Amazon Best Books of the Month, December 2010 : In Sugar and Ice figure skating dreams come true when Claire Boucher is spotted at her small town's Maple Show by a big-time skating coach. Claire isn't sure she's ready for competitive skating, but a scholarship to the elite Lake Placid training camp is too great an opportunity to pass up. Making friends, handling bullies in her skating class, and the high standards of her demanding new coach--who insists she can land a double toe loop--are challenges Claire must face alone, far from the comfort of her family's maple farm activities and her childhood friends. Sugar and Ice is a sweet but never saccharine story of a small-town girl who follows a dream and learns she is capable of more than she ever imagined both on and off the ice. -- Seira Wilson Gr 5-7–Claire Boucher is a busy seventh grader. She not only balances school with the responsibilities of work on her family farm, especially now that the maple sap is running, but also coaches young skaters at the nearby skating school. On the day that this delightful novel opens, she is rushing to get ready for the annual Maple Show. While she's aware that a famous Russian skating coach will be scouting, she is not hopeful that he's there for her. Competition terrifies her. But she lands her double toe loop and is offered a scholarship to the summer program at Lake Placid. But how can Claire ask her already busy parents to make the hour and a half drive three days a week? Does she really want to compete? Is she squandering her incredible talent if she chooses not to accept the offer? Messner has a flair for depicting engaging characters who are imperfect without being quirky. The dialogue between classmates and siblings is realistic, and the intergenerational or extended family relationships are interesting. The author shows the intensity of the world of competitive skating without dwelling on its rough edges, making it accessible not only to tween readers, but also to those who might have Olympic aspirations. There's a neat little twist in the plot and an ending that is sure to both surprise and resonate.–Brenda Kahn, Tenakill Middle School, Closter, NJ. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. One moment Claire Boucher is tapping the sap from her family’s maple trees; the next she is plucked from obscurity by a coach who sees her skate in the Maple Show and offers a scholarship in Lake Placid. From there the story takes a familiar path, as Claire must pursue her dream even as she fights off the mean girls who inhabit the world of competitive skating. Messner is awfully good at individualizing what might otherwise be stock characters, especially Claire, whose eagerness and apprehension come in equal measure. Of course, the (sometimes) glamorous world of figure skating doesn’t hurt for drawing readers, and even those who don’t know their double toe loops from their single salchows will enjoy reading about what it takes to make it on the ice. Although this gets a bit melodramatic at the end, there are several twists that readers will enjoy. Satisfying and likely to have wide appeal. Grades 5-7. --Ilene Cooper Kate Messner is the author of The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z. She teaches middle school in New York, where she lives with her husband and two children.