King Alfred and the Ice Coffin
by Kevin Crossley-Holland; illus. by Chris Riddell
Intermediate, Middle School    Candlewick Studio    88 pp.
11/24    9781536238808    $18.99

Quick, lyrical prose, an ear for the music of words, and an affection for Britain’s medieval past characterize much of Crossley-Holland’s work. He brings it all into play in this “wonder-journey” first recorded in Old English by King Alfred in the ninth century. At home in his busy hall in Winchester, Alfred is an eager pupil, learning Latin so he can translate books into the language of his people and record their stories too. Then Wulfstan shows up and tells Alfred’s court a strange tale. Shipwrecked with his “salt-friends,” he was rescued by a people whose ways were very different: they drank only mares’ milk and mead—never ale. Imagine Wulfstan’s even greater astonishment when their headman died and was packed with ice—remaining in an ice coffin for a month while friends and family “kept him company” before setting him on his funeral pyre. Such unfamiliar rites are wonders in themselves, and Crossley-Holland vividly evokes the suspense of strangeness in Wulfstan’s tale. With deft, pliable sentences, neatly embedded Old English poetic language (wonder-journey, bone-house), and a subtle orality of tone, Crossley-Holland makes Alfred’s pursuits and the performance of Wulfstan’s tale entrancing. The text’s font, with its pen-on-parchment effect, quietly implies the temporal distance, as do Riddell’s monochromatic images: pale browns for Alfred’s court; fantastical, haunting blues for Wulfstan’s tale. Yet the otherworldliness of the past is immersive in Riddell’s double-page spreads, which draw us right into Alfred’s hall or the pending weight of a colossal wave. An author’s note contextualizes King Alfred’s rule and literary legacy.

From the ">January/February 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.