The Midnight Unicorn
January 11, 2008
Neil Reed’s illustrations are so breathtakingly gorgeous that I sometimes forget to keep reading (until my daughter turns the page). Each spread is a single illustration, beautifully and elegantly rendered; the colors are controlled and the images so realistic some pages resemble photographs (really really great photographs). The story is fine: little girl loves to visit a unicorn statue, one day the unicorn statue comes to life and carries her away for a night full of travels and adventures, at the end of the night the girl and unicorn fall fast asleep on Unicorn Island, and finally the little girl’s father wakes her and tells her she just took a nap and must have dreamt the whole thing. (Yes, the Wizard of Oz/Newhart ending.) But the pictures are lovely enough to carry the story. And actually, the story doesn’t feel recycled at all; there’s something slightly different about it, like the expression on the father’s face and the girl’s final look back at the unicorn–that feels sad and romantic and moving. You are rooting for the girl to be right about her night, and her dad was wrong, you just know it.
Okay, not to be completely sappy, but I think I may love this book even more than my unicorn-crazed daughter. I usually let my kids pick out their favorites for me to read to them, but I have to confess, I do occasionally slip this one into the stack every now and then. It’s just that pretty.
