Horse girls were eating good in the Y2K era of middle grade fiction. And by “Y2K era”, I'm referring to a specific time period between 1997 to 2002. While 2003 and 2004 had some leftover Y2K influence, I often consider it a transitional period of sorts.
Putting aside that short tangent, lets focus on the book series this post is meant to focus on.
Debuting in 1999, Vicki Blum’s Unicorn series was among many staples of my childhood. It was truly the first book series where I grew alongside the protagonist, Arica. Although I technically started with book 4, in 2003, I nonetheless had this as a favourite series alongside Avalon: The Web of Magic series.
The books themselves have faded into obscurity, an unfortunate fate shared by many other books from this era. It’s a shame, really. While the writing is directed at elementary schoolers, it has the odd advanced word here and there to inspire kids to consult a dictionary. Or, at least it inspired me to back in the day.
Recently they came back on my radar as I was typing up a list of books I read as a child.
Not only did I fall in love with the covers all over again, I was sucked back into the world of Northern and southern Bundelag.
For brevity’s sake, I decided to review all five books at once for two reasons. One, all five books are short easy reads. Second, I feel that all the books can be told as one full story.
The Artwork
Let’s talk about first impressions, shall we?
The cover for the first is wonderfully whimsical. The landscape and rose vines around the border truly makes for a whimsical looking cover with a lot of intrigue. Sadly, I can’t say the same for the sequel.
It feels somehow underwhelming compared to the first book. I get what they were going for with the almost empty feeling landscape overshadowed by, well, Shadow himself. The grassy landscape just doesn’t evoke the same sense of wonder as the first cover did, in my opinion. It’s not a bad cover by any means. Just, feels like something is missing.
Now, moving right along…
One thing I notice about the writing is that it almost felt like I was reading a YA novel. As easy as they are to read, there were some words that I feel would have been too advanced for a second to fourth grader. I could see a fifth to sixth grader having no issues with the vocabulary.
I don’t want it to sound like a strike against the writing itself. A small part of me wonders how much reading standards have changed since 1999, and if second graders from that same year were more literate. Or, if I’m mistaken about that perception. I’m aware that schools are having to hold back more kids than ever, as many of them are behind on literacy. Maybe on another day I’ll look up if the rates have changed (and why). But for now, I think we’re just better at picking up on signs of kids struggling.
Back to the writing itself, I see nothing inherently wrong with drizzling big words into an otherwise easy to read story. I think kids should be encouraged to consult the dictionary if they find new words. I know from personal experience that when I read as a kid, finding new words and writing them down in a notebook added some fun to the experience. Come to think of it, I still do that now (instead I highlight words or sentences I find interesting in my kindle books).
The story
I will do my best to sum up everything that happens within Wish Upon a Unicorn and The Shadow Unicorn with the most brevity possible. Keep in mind that these are small, skinny books that can be read in an afternoon. I’m a slow reader these days, mainly because I would pause to jot down notes. If you haven’t read these books and don’t want to be spoiled, consider this your warning to go get them yourself..
Ok, ready?
Arica is our brave, resourceful, plucky heroine who is suddenly transported to the world of Bundelag after falling through her grandmother’s floor. Upon arrival, she is captured by trolls to work in a mine ran by the corrupt Radan (the son of the Fairy Queen). She soon realizes that she is the only one in the whole land who can speak with unicorns, holy creatures who usually keep to themselves. They refer to her as “The True One” telepathically. She is joined by two elves, Peyre and Drusa.
So, she frees the elves and unicorns from the mines that Radan forced them to work in with the help of Wish. After unleashing magic against Radan to cripple him, the Fairy Queen herself appears and it turns out she happens to be Arica’s grandmother as well. It turns out that her father is a fairy prince who fell in love with a human woman, and chooses to live in Canada without any of his memories of Bundelag. Which explains why he never told Arica anything about Bundelag.
By the end of “Wish Upon A Unicorn”, Arica returns home to her family in Calgary and celebrates her 10th birthday.
Three months pass by at the start of “The Shadow Unicorn”, and Arica keeps having dreams involving a dark grey horse being abused. Wish calls upon Arica to return to Bundelag and to go to the valley of the unicorns. As soon as she arrives, she is joined by an unconventional elf named Nue (I like Nue, he’s delightful).
When they arrive at the valley of the unicorns, Arica realizes to her horror that they’ve all been turned to stone by the dark unicorn, Shadow.
At one point she and Nue are captured by Ogres, who then take a liking to her and give her an item called “Eye of the Ogre”. I like that the ogres themselves speak in rhymes while offering a little bit of foreshadowing after giving Arica the eye.
As she travels further down south, she eventually comes face to face with Raden and Shadow. Wish, her unicorn, is then turned to stone by Shadow’s curse.
It turns out that Shadow is siding with Raden because he was rescued by the evil fairy, and therefore is loyal. However, just when Shadow is about to bring about an apocalyptic event, Arica pulls out the ogre eye and it stops the grey unicorn in his tracks.
Then, she passes out and wakes up to being cared for by the Fairy Queen; who recounts everything that went down after Arica passes out. Shadow was seen galloping off into the wilderness, and his spell on the other unicorns break.
With the unicorns being safe and Raden getting banished, Arica returns home. Shortly after she does, her father informs her of a dream he had about living in a fantasy castle with another boy. It feels a bit too realistic to him to be a dream, though he writes it off as just that. Hmmm, foreshadowing for what is to happen within the next three books? We’ll see.
Overall, I thought the story was fun for what it is. I appreciate that Arica lives in Alberta rather than Ontario or Quebec. I lived in Alberta for a few years and can confirm that it has a lot of potential for fantasy settings. Technically, Bundelag is in its own fantasy world. However, it wouldn’t quite be Bundelag without imagining the great Alberta wilderness. There’s even little references to Alberta that readers who aren’t from there won’t pick up on (such as “The Badlands”, which is a real place in Alberta where dinosaur bones can be found).
Purchasing the books
If you have a kindle account, all five books are free to read. Alternatively, you can also buy them paperback.
Final thoughts
Going these two books has made me happy. In a state of whimsical bliss that transported me back in time to when I was younger and saw the world through a fantastical lens. A time when I secretly still believed in the existence of unicorns, fairies and dragons (though I rationalized it as all of them being extinct animals, because it made the most sense to me). It took me back to a time when swimming at the pool meant I pretended to be a mermaid princess that could be human whenever she wanted to, and that all animals loved her (a belief somewhat reinforced by horses always coming up to me at the fence line).
Dear Vicki Blum,
I don’t know if you will ever read this blog post, but if you do then I want to thank you for giving me the much needed escape route I needed when I was the bullied new girl in town. Although I wish we got more adventures in Bundelag, the ending was good enough in my opinion (all good things must come to an end, yes?).
This series is criminally underrated. I’m looking forward to re-reading “The Land Without Unicorns”.
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