Unicorn Day

May 20, 2019
It’s Unicorn Day, a celebration of unicorn pride, style, and having “fun, fun, fun!” Illustrating in ebullient digital art, Flowers renders bipedal unicorns with wide eyes and fabulously styled manes and tails. In a woodland landscape, the unicorns slide down rainbows, dance with butterflies, and catch cupcakes raining from the sky, and a full spread depicts an epic “Glitter Fight!” Tension arrives with the discovery of a horse wearing a pretend horn. The unicorns initially exclude, but the imposter’s tearful response leads them to “give the horse a hug instead.” A joyous, inclusive procession—joining the unicorns and horse are an octopus, human children, an elephant, and a yeti—further emphasize that Unicorn Day is for “unique-orn”s and “younicorns,” too. A song celebrating “cupcakes, sprinkles, cherry tarts, starlight twinkles, glowing hearts” closes out the story. Readers are sure to wish for their own Unicorn Day (and they’ll want to mark their calendars for April 9). Ages 4–8.

April 1, 2019
Fabled equines party and play in a bright confection of a picture book. "Hooray! Hooray! It's Unicorn Day!" In galloping rhyming text that mostly scans, a community of chipper, bright-eyed unicorns obeys the three rules of Unicorn Day: "Show off your horn," "Fluff up that hair," and "Have fun, fun, fun!" They dance, frolic with butterflies, and of course eat cupcakes. But then they discover an interloper: A dun-colored quadruped, with a horn suspiciously attached with string, is outed as a horse. He mopes off, but the unicorns come running after--"they don't want to lose a friend!"--and his horn is tied back on. With tension limited to a page turn, this very minor climax is resolved immediately. Then it's back to the fun, as lots of other creatures (human children, a rainbow octopus, a Yeti, and more) join the unicorn parade with their own tied-on horns. Is this an allegory about straight people at pride parades? An argument that appropriation is OK sometimes? Should one read meaning into the identity of the only brown "unicorn"? Or is it just a zany, philosophy-free, sugar-fueled opposite-of-a-bedtime story? Regardless of subtext, conscious or otherwise, kiddie readers hungry for fluff will be drawn to the bright, energetic illustrations as to cotton candy. Give this to the sparkle- and cupcake-obsessed child in your life. (Picture book. 4-8)

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