The Frozen Sea by Piers Torday

Quercus, 2019. ISBN: 9781786540768. 352pp.
(Age: 9-12) Recommended. It is 1984 and Jewel lives with her mother Patricia and her only friend, a hamster named Fizz. Patricia has always been obsessed by her missing sister and there is a family mystery regarding her childhood. Official information is gradually released throughout the novel and this infers there was an unsanctioned experiment regarding an alternative world.
Jewel tends to be an outsider and when she is chased by school bullies, she seeks refuge in a bookshop. She falls into a book and continues an adventure started by her mother and her aunt and uncles many years ago. She is guided into the fantasy world of Folio where she has to rescue her aunt who has been missing since childhood. In this fantasy world, Fizz has the power to speak and gives lots of comical, self-centred advice to Jewel.
Folio is inhabited by many storybook characters and a fearsome collection of robots. Everyone is obsessed with their Stampstone, which gives information and tells the wearers what to think. It's interesting how nearly everyone in Folio relies on the Stampstone and are obsessed with their screens and information, a strong comparison to the tablets and iphones of today.
Aided by a copper robot and Fizz, Jewel must travel to the Frozen Sea to find her aunt and meets a variety of fictional characters along the way. The Frozen Sea holds all the answers to her quest and she must face this danger to find a solution.
Piers Torday has written acclaimed fantasy books such as The Lost Magician, short listed for an award by The Times.
I recommend this book to children 9 to 12 years old.
Jane Moore