Genre: Fiction/Fantasy
Reading Level/Interest Level: Listed as Young Adult – Recommend 6.3/ Grades 5-9
Awards: None
Similar Titles: The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
After
overhearing some unlucky hunters in her woods belligerently call out that she,
as the forest’s protector, is the last of her kind, one lone unicorn sets out
to discover the truth about the others like her. She learns that the other
unicorns have been herded to the edge of the land by the dreaded and fearsome
Red Bull. In her quest to discover where he has taken her sister unicorns, she is
befriended by a bumbling and miserable magician, Schmendrick, who frees her
from the clutches of an evil witch. It is Schmendrick, who, in an attempt to
protect the unicorn from the Red Bull during an altercation that turns the
unicorn into a human woman. While in human form, she begins to forget her true
identity, her magic and her quest, instead experiencing love, and finally loss,
which leads her to a new transformation and the discovery of the captivity of
her sisters and while unwittingly helping a prophecy to fruition.
While
filled with wonder and honor, I always found this novel to be sad and dark. The
unicorn seems so lonely and suffers so much in her epic journey, becoming
forever changed, yet never getting what she truly wants. So much so, that even if
she returns to her home (and I’m not spoiling any endings here, so we’ll just
leave it at that) she would no longer be the innocent, shining creature she
once was, regardless if she returned victorious.
This
book often appeals to young unicorn lovers out there, but let me warn that this
novel should be read by the older set of those interested in the topic. In a
developmental stage where emotions run high, it is important that the reader be
able to process the grief, guilt, regret and sadness in the novel, and find the
moral of the novel and a positive, even in a negative outcome, almost like The Neverending Story. Without that greater understanding, younger
readers might only see the darker side of the novel without being able to
accurately render its meaning and content. I know I did.
Also a major motion picture:
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