Title The Unicorn and the Plow Series --- Author Louise Moeri Illustrator Diane Goode Publisher E.P. Dutton - 1982 First Printing E.P. Dutton - 1982 Category Children Warnings None Main Characters --- Main Elements Unicorns

There was once a man who lived on a tiney farm at the edge of a dark forest. Every day he went out with his oxen and his plow and tilled the small fields and cleared them rank green weeds. But every day the weeds sprang up again.

The man grew poorer and poorer. So poor that he had to get rid of his faithful oxen.

But then a miracle happened. A miracle that changed everything - and makes a rich, and haunting, original fable.

The wonderful artwork matches this magical tale perfectly. Written as a fable or fairy tale, it tells of a man so poor he is prepared to kill one of his oxen and sell the other, but for the first time in all the years he had them, they speak, telling him to wait just one more day. It is a long day, filled with hunger, for as he finds a rabbit to catch, he discovers too her offspring so he lets her live. He finds some eggs but realizes that the world needs mockingbirds to sing. But those acts of goodness, even as he eats nettles for dinner, are rewarded when a wonderous creature give him a gift of magic.

I don't know if it is intentionally related to the passage in the Bible speaking of unicorns pulling plows, but either way, it is a beautiful book.