From School Library Journal
Grade 2-6–In this layered faux memoir, a young man remembers when, as an eight-year-old, he experienced the power of story. Tomas would rather be roaming around the mountains but reluctantly listens to the village librarian as, perched on a life-size carved unicorn, she tells the story of how the last two unicorns missed Noah's ark (some readers may recognize Shel Silverstein's poem later set to music and sung by the Irish Rovers), then swam until they no longer needed legs and became narwhals. The librarian also tells a graphic story of brown-shirted men who burned her father's library and shows a scorched copy of
The Little Match Girl he pulled from the flames. When war later comes to Tomas's unnamed European village, the library burns, but the librarian and the children and their families save the books. The well-intentioned voice of the man recounting the past sets wartime horrors at a remove, but this is a stiff story for children who don't have much knowledge of World War II. The stories of the past, the present, the unicorns, and the war are a lot to pack into a short chapter book. Blythe's sensitive crosshatched pencil, black wash, and full-color watercolors depict the village and the animals with enough drama to entice second and third graders, but the book's actual readers may be older.
–Susan Hepler, formerly at Burgundy Farm Country Day School, Alexandria, VA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Eight-year-old Tomas, who doesn't like school and reading, spends his time roaming the mountains. One day, his mother insists that he visit the library, where the librarian is known for her storytelling. Sullen Tomas is soon captivated by the "Unicorn Lady," so called because of the life-size carved unicorn in the reading room. The librarian's favorite book is
The Little Match Girl, though her copy is burnt around the edges. She once lived under a regime where books were burned, but her father rescued this one from a bonfire. Soon war comes to Tomas' village. The bombing destroys the library, but stalwart townspeople, with Tomas' father and the Unicorn Lady in the forefront, save the books. This short, small-format novel carries a heartfelt message: "Stories and poems help you to think and to dream. Books make you ask questions," and it's imperative to fight those who would deny you the right to read. Morpurgo's prose, solid, but with a poetic lilt, is extended by lovely, softly colored two-page illustrations and smaller black-and-white vignettes.
Ilene CooperCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
