Brain Freeze

Tom Fletcher's Brain Freeze is a funny time-travel story for 7 year olds about a girl, an old ice-cream van and one enormous headache.

What happens

Izzy eats ice cream every single day. Vanilla, in a cone, with a Flake in the top. It's a promise she made to herself, and it has everything to do with her grandpa.

Gramps drove an ice-cream van, blue as the sky, with the chimes playing as he came down the road. He could flip a cone up his arm and spin it on one finger while he poured. Then he got ill, the van went into the garage, and he died.

So on the night the family freezer packs up and the corner shop turns out to be shut, Izzy isn't going to let it go. She sneaks down the garden at midnight to look at the van instead.

The van is unlocked. The keys are in the ignition. And the little light on the ice-cream machine is green, which means full.

You can probably guess what happens next. She eats far too much far too fast, and the brain freeze that follows is so enormous it stops time. Then she knocks the handbrake.

What makes this one sing is how chatty Izzy is. Her tummy and her brain both talk back to her, and when the three of them hold a vote she loses. She tells you when she's fibbing. She stops to point out that time travel makes your head hurt, which it does.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

Gramps dies in the opening pages. Izzy says so straight out, and a good deal of the book is her missing him, including visits back to his hospital room. It's warm rather than bleak, and the silly bits are properly silly.

For a child who has recently lost a grandparent this could be a lot, or it could be exactly the right book at exactly the right time. You'll know better than I would. For everyone else it's a daft adventure with a real ache underneath, and the two sit together beautifully.

What to read next

If they enjoy a grown-up spinning a story you're not quite sure you believe, try Fortunately, The Milk next. A dad nips out for milk, takes a very long time about it, and explains himself with aliens, pirates and a hot-air balloon.