Book of the Week

Ice Magic. A place where two steel blades become wings. A place where ice can warm your heart.

If you believe that ice skating is a sport for angels, if you think that ice chills friendships, if you think you can learn to fly without falling… then you don't know the girls from Ice Magic.

Ten-and-a-half years of age. Too old to believe in fairytales, too young to try and turn them into reality. Only magic could make one feel grown-up, forget everyday problems, escape boredom in a little town.

For Ada and her friends from the Snowdrop course, magic is the five-centimetre-thick layer of ice covering the skating rink of the Ice Magic Skating School. Like an enchanted mirror, the ice can tell uncomfortable truths. It tells that talent alone is not enough to make you win, and winning is not enough to make you happy.

That it is better to lose a competition than a friend. That in order to learn to fly you must first learn to fall. But ice is also a magic carpet that takes Ada on adventures big and small: skating in international shows, going to competitions away from home, designing original costumes, making new friendships... and discovering that when you meet someone special, your heart can do a triple axel brilliantly!

ICE MAGIC #1: CON LE ALI AI PIEDI · WITH WINGS ON YOUR FEET

At Ice Magic, the skating school where Ada and her friends learn to fly across the ice, winter is the warmest season.

The applause for the Christmas show has just died away and it is already time to think about the Game Gala, the Carnival on Ice. And this year it will be the Snowdrops, Ada's course who take the stage. But how can they organise a show when Selene, the star of the group is on holiday in the mountains and Viola, the director, is always falling out with Filippo, the grumpy champion?

Ada would like to confide in her new classmate, but it seems that the aristocratic Uli hates skating… What is the secret of this strange allergy? It will be Ada who discovers it, just in time for the two girls to save the Carnival show. And a new Snowdrop will bloom at Ice Magic.

ICE MAGIC #2: KISS AND CRY

Ada and her Snowdrop friends are disconcerted. Teresa, their favourite trainer has left Ice Magic because she is expecting a baby. Now Agata, the elegant teacher with icy eyes has taken her place.

And it is Agata who announces the great news: Karen Montague, the director of the famous Crystal Circus, wants two Snowdrops for her next international show on ice. The girls become so competitive that their friendships are at risk; Filippo must once again face his father's hostility - he thinks figure skating is too effeminate for a boy.

But thanks to the generosity of Karen, the Crystal Circus will not be an adventure for just two of them… and an escape from home will end in the best of ways.

ICE MAGIC #3: CRYRISTAL CIRCUS · CRYSTAL CIRCUS

For the Snowdrops it's competition time… on the ice and in the stands. Because the Ice Magic colours must be defended on skates and with loud cheering from their fans.

Particularly if the Liduana Cup is the prize, the trophy reserved for the young stars of the most prestigious schools, where the winners are not just the best, they also become celebrities. For Rebecca,

Viola's shy and talented sister, the competition is lost before she starts; but Ada and her friends become firm supporters and the trip that started out under a black cloud becomes a celebration of sport and friendship. The Ice Magic Bus, the new mini-bus must leave immediately: there is the Four Provinces Trophy to win, and this time it is the Snowdrops who skate for their school.

Their competitors are fierce, but Ada is not discouraged: her competition costume is superb and Dad is in the stands, her number one fan. And just when Vicky's tiredness risks compromising the result, she will turn the Snowdrop's luck around…

ICE MAGIC #4: GHIACCIÓ D'ESTATE · SUMMER ICE

A summer skating holiday in the mountains with Tanja Kozmina, the coach to champions, and to Boris Blasi, the most glamorous skater of the moment: for Ada this is a dream come true.

But the summer ice can be a traitor, and when her best friend, the capricious Selene, prefers some rich, snobbish girls, and a public peril known as 'the little countess', bullies her, Ada's dream risks becoming a nightmare.

Fortunately there are plenty of interesting people on the holiday: Bianca and Virginia, two chatterbox cousins, Ray, the handsome-but-distant classmate and above all Amos, an adorable introvert with a passion for drawing.

Amongst forbidden acrobatics, night-time escapes, sentimental cows and midsummer storms, Ada will live a memorable adventure and she will find herself the protagonist of a cartoon without an ending… and in the end she will discover that doing a double leap is much easier than separating from a very special friend.

Lia Celi was born in Parma and lives in Rimini. She loves books, cakes, cats and black and white films.

She is a journalist, writer and translator, although her children, Emma, Gioconda, Iris and Orlando think it is a question of homonymy, because when their mother is at home she does nothing but cook and do the washing. For Edizioni EL she has written Marlene Dietrich and Anita Garibaldi.

Link: Blog Lia Celi

Sara Not grew up in Trieste, where she learned to draw with felt pens on the kitchen tiles. When she grew up she studied in Milano and there she began her career as an illustrator.

for a long time she lived between Milano and Paris, a city that she adores. Now she lives and draws in Trieste in a yellow house with dark green shutters. In the garden there are olives, two dogs and a child with big eyes who rides around on a tricycle.

Link: Website Sara Not

>>> order material