Title The Legendary Unicorn Series --- Author Udo Weigelt Illustrator Julia Gukova Publisher NorthSouth - 2004 First Printing Nord-Sud Verlag AG - 2004 Category Children Warnings None Main Characters Hedgehog, Bear, Hare Main Elements Unicorns

My name is Lily! I'm a unicorn.

Every even the animals gather in a clearing in the forest to tell stories -- fairy tales, myths and legends, fantasies filled with magic and wonder. One evening as Hedgehog heads for the gathering, he sees something extraordinary -- a unicorn drinking from the stream! He is astonished. But when he tells the other animals about it, they assure him that he is mistaken. "The unicorn is just a legend," they say, "a myth. In reality there are no unicorns." Soon, Hedgehog himself no longer believes his own eyes.

Suddenly, there is something very wrong in the forest. The birds no longer sing, the babbling stream is silent, all seems dim and dull. And when the animals meet to share stories, they discover that they have forgotten them all. Luminous, lovely paintings illustrated this enchanted tale about the power of belief and the wonder of the legendary unicorn.

I was actually expecting a kind of documentary style type book about the legend of the unicorns, but this is a story about Hedgehog who thinks he sees a unicorn on the forest, a creature even the animals think is imaginary. But even when he shows them, they refuse to believe their eyes, with the result that without belief, they can't have stories either. So they come together to make a new story.

The illustrations are dreamlike and fuzzy, appropriate for this tale about not believing what one sees. Often the unicorn is there, but hard to see, for example is it just a tree and some leaves, or a magical equine? And when the animals can't see it, it is right there in front of them in a way they don't expect. The one distrubing thing is that the unicorn has a kind of creepy nose, almost humanlike...but then if you read the origins of the unicorn legend they have appeared in much stranger forms than that in the past!

I didn't love the book, but it has a lot more of the magic I expect in a unicorn tale, where so many other kids books tend towards the silly and the ridiculous, this one is a distinct contrast and is beautiful for it.