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.

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