From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 4-A purposeful poem poses the question and gives its own answers in words and pictures. The unicorns have fled and disappeared into the sea before the worst aspects of civilization-war, deforestation, industrialization, and overpopulation-threaten their existence. The poem reads aloud well. The onomatopoeic descriptions ("clacketing mills" and "chuggering trains") and alliterative phrases ("ribbon-rolled river" and "perfect peace of ponds") roll pleasantly off the tongue. However, some of the language, e.g., "Routed by gouts of iron-red flames" and "the cataphonetics of city and town," seems rhetorically ornate. The illustrator's extravagant, romanticized double-page spreads are as grandiose as the poetry, using a complex method of layering oils on gessoed Masonite panels, sometimes textured with pumice gel and modeling paste. Overall, there is no real plot and what strives to be inspiring seems ultimately pretentious. Marianna Mayer's The Unicorn and the Lake (Dial, 1982; o.p.) is more touching and compelling and Michael Hague's unicorns are more powerfully rendered.
Kate McClelland, Perrot Memorial Library, Old Greenwich, CT Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Ages 6-8. A gifted wordsmith answers the title question in verse set to Sanderson's most powerful, expressive art to date. Where
are the unicorns? Fleeing the "helmeted knights and their steel-weapon games," the "clacketing mills" and "iron sharp city-straight scapes," the unicorns have escaped to the sea, where "in the moment that separates nighttime and dawn, / The instant of daydream that's here and then gone, / You might see the toss of a mane or a horn. . . ." Using rough, prepared surfaces to capture texture, Sanderson adds layers of misty color to create a feeling of depth between the powerful, iridescent-looking beasts in the foreground, and the human works--castles, factories, a space shuttle roaring up from its launch pad--past which they gallop. The grand, lyrical sweep of poem and pictures together will carry readers to a place where the mundane and the magical blend.
John PetersCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
