Title A Glory of Unicorns Series --- Editor Bruce Coville Cover Art Rebecca Guay Illustrated By Alix Berenzy Publisher Scholastic - 1998 First Printing Scholastic - 1998 Category Anthology Main Characters See below Main Elements Unicorns

• "The Guardian of Memory"
• "Tearing Down the Unicorns"
• "Beyond the Fringe"
• "Stealing Dreams"
• "The Dream-Child"
• "The Ugly Unicorn"
• "Story Hour"
• "The Unicorns of Kabustan"
• "A Song for Croaker Nordge"
• "The Healing Truth"
• "Child of Faerie"
• "The New Girl"

Do you believe?

A sacred ritual among unicorns takes a surprising turn. A beautiful, blind princess in ancient China befriends an ugly creature that is not what it seems. A rug woven with special threads takes on magical properties.

This fantastical collection of stories compiled by master storyteller Bruce Coville - spanning from Kabustan to the Far East and from an English village to the suburbs of America - will be treasured by unicorn lovers for a lifetime.

I think I might have been a little too old for some of the stories, I think I would have enjoyed more of them if I'd read this book when it first came out. But still, there were some gems that I really enjoyed.

"The Guardian of Memory" is part of Coville's Unicorn Chronicles series. I never really got into that series since I only read the first two books, and the last one is completely impossible to find (apparently some issue with the publisher??), but it still stands on its own and is interesting enough.

The ones I didn't care so much for was "Tearing Down the Unicorns" (though I still have unicorn posters on my walls from when I was in elementary school!). "Beyond the Fringe" also didn't really captivate me.

"Stealing Dreams" intrigued me, as I too had unicorns on my wallpaper, though they never came alive for me! Not sure where I would place "Story Hour", it was oddly written with many asides.

"The Ugly Unicorn" was one of my favorites, I like the setting in China, and the Asian unicorn aspect (though the mythology used here is invented, there aren't "leopard unicorns" or "tiger unicorns" in Asian lore). But the concept was lovely with a surprising twist at the end. And again, the setting in "The Unicorns of Kabustan" was unique. And I was surprised to enjoy "A Song for Croaker Nordge" a sad tale with a happy ending, or is it a happy tale with a sad ending? "The Healing Truth" may not have had an entirely convincing ending (its one thing when one person can see a unicorn, another when an entire school can) but the ugly, snarky unicorn hiding in the closet was priceless. "Child of Faerie" was also lovely and sweet, another tale of hard choices and sacrifice. And finally, "The New Girl", with another snarky unicorn, wraps up the list of stories I really enjoyed.

Seems like I wasn't too impressed with the first half, but the second half just kept getting better!