Louisville Artist Illustrates New Children's Book

The Ice Cream Hotel

by Jack Johnston; illustrations by Annette Cable

Culver, Indiana:  Norwen Publications, $17.95

Review by Katherine Dalton

Entire contents copyright  2012 by Katherine Dalton. All rights reserved.

Hot? Tired? Bored? Sick of balanced meals, and under age 8? Then The Ice Cream Hotel is for you. This month we leave the post-modern essayists and noir novelists behind and take a moment out for a book for the kids. And with summer hard upon us, a story about ice cream seems right for the season.

Louisville artist Annette Cable has illustrated The Ice Cream Hotel to a rhyming text by Indiana writer (and now publisher) Jack Johnston. This hardcover picture book is right for toddlers through early elementary readers. It is a colorful exploration of what one little boy and his dog find when they take a special vacation to a place where everything is cold, sweet and edible – right down to the bed. 

If your young reader likes to use the computer, the book offers a search-and-find challenge and an invitation to go to TheIceCreamHotel.com for more stuff to do when she's finished reading – puzzles, word games and coloring pages.

The book is currently available only from the website: http://theicecreamhotel.com/

About the Author

Jack Johnston likes to make things, paddle canoes, read to his kids and basically spend a lot of time with his family. He lives in Culver, Indiana.

About the Illustrator

Annette Cable is a freelance illustrator and children’s art teacher in Louisville, Kentucky. She lives with her husband, Mark, also an artist; her daughter, Izzy; a dog (who loves tennis balls); four cats; and a guinea pig. You can see more of her art at www.annettecable.com.