Typically, researchers recommend starters who have the capability of evolving because the childlike base form is often easier to deal with or master. In the case of the ice type, this is largely relevant for lapras (difficult for a beginner to train, especially in a landlocked environment), cryogonal (notorious for being highly dangerous and difficult to train), and delibird (notorious for being incapable of learning anything other than Present), but a number of others are viable options. Thus, it’s more of a question of what’s available to you at the time, as a number of ice-types are highly rare in certain regions.
If you have the option to choose any pokémon, however, snorunt tends to be the easiest to train, as its humanoid traits make it the most agreeable to people. It’s also a highly social pokémon in that it’s prone to congregate in groups in the wild. In captivity, that often means it sticks as close to its trainer as possible and fares far better in more urban environments, where it’s surrounded by noise and people. (Trained snorunt see humans who are friendly to their trainer as extensions of their surrogate clan.) Of course, finding snorunt in the first place tends to be a bit more difficult, as snorunt are native to deep, icy cave systems and are not popularly bred pokémon. (There are, of course, snorunt breeders in the world, but they’re fewer in numbers than any other breeder.)
Smoochum is likewise highly sociable, and smoochum adapt to warmer temperatures a little easier than snorunt do. However, they’re also rarer and more difficult to obtain, and the only reliable means of doing so would be to contact breeders in regions where smoochum and jynx are native wildlife (namely Johto, Sinnoh, Kalos, and the northernmost territories of Canada).
You could also try snover, which is also rather friendly to humans and nearly sapient at that. Its evolution, abomasnow, is also a lot quieter and more docile than jynx, froslass, or glalie. (Especially glalie.) It also has the ability to photosynthesize, making it easier for extreme beginning trainers to handle. On the other hand, snover and abomasnow prefer quiet areas, so it’s not a particularly good choice for trainers in highly urban regions such as Unova, Johto, or Kalos. That and with its dual weakness to fire, it may be a particularly challenging option for any region with native fire-type pokémon or resident fire-type gym leaders or Elite Four members. (Again, that would be Unova and Kalos.)
If your brother would prefer something a little less humanoid, spheal is both docile and fairly easy to train, and its water typing makes it an ideal choice for those who wish to counter ice’s weakness to fire. It also evolves into a pokémon with fantastic defensive capabilities, which means it’s one of the least frustrating choices for a young trainer. The downside is that as a partial water-type, your brother will need to understand how to keep a spheal hydrated, not to mention spheal’s evolutions are not particularly mobile on land. (Spheal is, however, as it can roll rather quickly.)
Alternatively, swinub’s ground-typing can achieve the same results as spheal’s water-based abilities, and it can travel on land. Likewise, it has the ability to hunt for edibles in any given environment, making it highly useful outside of battle as well. Of course, getting it to stop eating anything and everything it finds and leaving nothing left over for their trainers is an entirely different matter, and a trainer should keep in mind that although swinub is fairly easy to teach, when it smells food, it may ignore everything its trainer says unless it happens to be very well trained.
The others may be a touch too rare or too difficult to train. Vanillite, for example, are only really popular in its native Unova, and as such, there are no breeders for vanillite outside of that region. Likewise, while vulpix and sandshrew can be ice-types, the only way to obtain them are via breeders or trainers from Alola, which can get rather costly. Conversely, cubchoo is easy to train and easier to obtain than vanillite, sandshrew, or vulpix (as their cute looks make them highly wanted pets), but after evolution, cubchoo becomes the fierce and highly carnivorous beartic, which may perhaps be a bit more difficult for a nine-year-old to handle. Amaura is extremely difficult to obtain (in that it may only be resurrected from fossils), bergmite is just as dangerous as cryogonal, and sneasel, while not particularly dangerous when tamed, is prone to highly rebellious behavior when not paired with an experienced trainer.
Of course, if we wish to go over every option, there are also pokémon that evolve into ice-types, but it should be warned that quite a few of these are not particularly mobile. For example, seel and shellder evolve into dewgong and cloyster, respectively, but neither of them travel well on land.
However, you also have eevee, which under certain circumstances can evolve into the ice-type glaceon, and in comparison with the other aforementioned pokémon, there are absolutely no disadvantages to training an eevee, and in fact, your brother may wish to start with that, now that I think about it.
Bill, eevee can only evolve into glaceon when it comes in contact with very specific boulders, all of which are located in extremely treacherous spots in only three regions on the planet. —LH
You’re right. Anonymous, give your brother one of the above and an eevee. — Bill
The Pokédex According to Bill 