Visiting their grandfather's toy shop, Hanna and Louis notice a crystal ball with a castle inside of it, little realizing that by shaking the ball, Louis has set in motion an epic battle within. Living within her chilly castle, in the world inside the crystal ball, the Ice Witch feels the ground shaking, and witnesses the lightning strike that sets a tree outside of her home ablaze. Try as she might to fight it, the fire cannot be put out, and from the flames comes a unicorn, whose presence breaks the ice witch's hold on the countryside. Outside in the human world, Hanna and Louis notice a very surprising difference in the crystal ball, as they are leaving the store...

Published in 1997 by the London-based Tango Books, The Ice Witch and the Unicorn: A Chilling Hologram Book is a title I tracked down largely because of my interest in witchy picture-books, which are a perennial pet project of mine. It is a brief fairy-tale, featuring a story idea - an entire world within an object, whether a crystal ball or a painting - that I have seen explored before. It struck me as a more fantastical variant of something like Jane O'Connor's The Snow Globe Family, a picture-book about two families, one inside and one outside the eponymous snow globe. Of course, the O'Connor story is meant to be a cute tale, whereas this clearly aims for a more serious, epic tone, with the conflict between the witch and the unicorn. The theme of a winter witch being defeated also put me briefly in mind of The Lion, the Witch and Wardrobe, although there the similarity ends. This is clearly meant to be a fun, interactive read, and there are die-cuts in the pages, and shiny holograms, all no doubt meant to make the reading process more entertaining. The accompanying artwork from Octavia Monaco is actually quite lovely, with an appealing color palette and beautifully stylized figures.

I can imagine that, had I first encountered it as a girl, this might have been a favorite, with its magical story and beautiful artwork. As an adult, the hologram element felt a little gimmicky to me, and I wanted to see more about the witch and the unicorn. Still, there is appeal here, and if one can track down a copy (it is long out of print), I recommend it to young fairy-tale and fantasy lovers. ( )