Many of my fondest food memories revolve around ice cream:

Lining up for a Milk-Nickel in the school cafeteria. Frequenting Dairy Queen for Dilly Bars and chocolate sundaes. Savoring Frosty Malts while watching Elvis Presley movies at the neighborhood theatre. Visiting my first Baskin-Robbins (butter pecan!). Raiding our home freezer for Creamsicles, Fudgsicles and Drumsticks. Jumping up and scrounging for coins when hearing the ice cream truck on our street.

Ice cream has got to be the happiest of treats because it brings out the kid in everyone. No matter the form or flavor, where or when you eat it, ice cream is pure joy.

Joy is the unifying theme in Judy Campbell-Smith’s scrumptious new picture book, Ice Cream Everywhere: Sweet Stories from Around the World, illustrated by Lucy Semple (Sleeping Bear Press, 2024).

On Judy’s menu: twelve different kinds of ice cream — most of which were new to me — from faraway places like Cuba, Argentina, India, Japan and New Zealand. Did you know that in Germany, ice cream can look like noodles, or that there’s a Turkish ice cream with a chewy, stretchy texture that allows sellers to do tricks with it? Or how about the unique Libyan treat, baklava gelato, a product of Italian colonialism? Fascinating stuff!

Tasty ice cream facts go down easy thanks to Campbell-Smith’s appetizing blend of fiction and nonfiction. Each double page spread features an appealing vignette of a child eating the highlighted ice cream + a few sidebar tidbits (history, tradition, context). Each is introduced as a different kind of joy.

For example, the book begins with, “It’s the joy of a good morning.” We meet Leo in Italy, who breakfasts on brioche con gelato, which is “cold hazelnut gelato served inside a warm, fluffy bun.” Can’t say which would delight kids more, to imagine eating ice cream for breakfast, or having it inside a warm bun!

There’s also “the joy of trying something new,” where Neza in Rwanda tastes soft serve ice cream for the first time; “the joy of searching and finding” in India, as Zara and Syed hunt for a “kulfiwallah,” a street vendor selling mango-flavored cone-shaped frozen custard (kulfi); and “the joy of variety” in Japan, where Anzu picks mochi ice cream balls while Kimiko chooses watermelon ice cream on a stick.

Readers will appreciate how pistachio bouza gives Syrian refugees Ali and his grandmother a taste of home while in Jordan, how family and friends in Argentina share bowls of dulce de leche, and a Cuban boy and his grandfather enjoy bowl upon bowl of ensalada (each containing five scoops of ice cream!).

We also discover that the book was inspired by Judy’s time studying in New Zealand, where she first tasted hokey pokey ice cream (vanilla mixed with bits of crunchy toffee), and habitually treated herself to gelato while wandering around downtown Auckland. Did you know New Zealanders eat more ice cream per person than any other country?

Lucy Semple’s colorful, cheery illustrations transport readers around the world, giving us an intimate look at different ice cream eating scenarios. Whether at an outdoor Caffè, a busy marketplace, seated on a park bench, or around a crowded table, people of all ages and with different skin tones are united in their love for ice cream. Hungry eyes will like studying the details in each spread, from dogs licking melted ice cream, to vanilla gelato being pressed through a noodle maker, to the big store freezer packed with all kinds of tempting frozen treats.

The book ends with “the joy of celebration,” as we’re invited to join Ruby’s birthday party in the USA. Let’s hear it for ice cream sundaes, complete with “drizzles of warm chocolate sauce, piles of whipped cream, and chopped nuts,” not to mention Ruby’s favorite topping, “A cherry on top!”

Ice Cream Everywhere has deee-licious written all over it, and will make kids curious to try the fruity, creamy, chewy, and smooth varieties eaten in countries other than their own. Served up with generous scoops of community, cultural diversity and fun, it just goes to show we all scream for ice cream, and no matter where, when, or how we eat it, it’s all good.

Back matter includes a map, author’s note, and short paragraphs about the differences between traditional ice cream and four other variations.

What’s your favorite way to eat ice cream? Cup or cone? Bar or sandwich? Root beer float or banana split? What’s your favorite flavor?

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ICE CREAM EVERYWHERE: Sweet Stories from Around the World
written by Judy Campbell-Smith
illustrated by Lucy Semple
published by Sleeping Bear Press, March 2024
Fiction-Nonfiction Picture Book for ages 6-9, 32pp.
*Includes World Map, Author’s Note, and Ice Cream Differences

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*Interior spreads text copyright © 2024 Judy Campbell-Smith, illustrations © 2024 Lucy Semple, published by Sleeping Bear Press. All rights reserved.

**Copyright © 2025 Jama Rattigan of Jama’s Alphabet Soup. All rights reserved.