It's impossible to review just one book in Kathleen Duey's The Unicorn's Secret, as each one builds on the previous installment. Each book is magical in its own right, but only together do they truly fly.I have two daughters, ages 5 and 6. Both are emerging readers who alternate between loving and hating reading. They love being read to, but they resist the effort they have to put into reading themselves. Knowing how much they love unicorns, I searched specifically for a book with "Unicorn" in the title. When we happened upon this series, I knew I hit on something special.
From the first word, all three of us were enraptured by the little girl, Heart, who has led less than an ideal life. Found by a hard, sometimes cruel, man when she was a baby, Heart ached to know who she really was and why she was left behind by her family. Her journey begins when she finds a "horse" with a curious scar on her forehead. With her new friend, threads from her baby blanket and very little else, Heart begins an adventure that spans the 8 books of this series.
Every chapter end had my daughters begging for more (just one more chapter, Mommy!). Don't tell them, but I sometimes stole a peek at the next chapter after bedtime! Every finished book had them demanding the next and when we finally finished the series they cried out for another! The ending is beautifully satisfying (I admit, I teared up!), one that only my exceptionally imaginative 6-year-old guessed (with a "What if...") mid-series.
I highly recommend The Unicorn's Secret to any parent and every child anywhere from age 5 (for a child with a long attention span) to at least 12. There were a few vocabulary words here and there that my 5-year-old didn't quite grasp, but overall it was easy to read and understand. When they couldn't wait for me to read it to them, they would try to read it themselves! At last - they wanted to read! At a 1st grade reading level it got frustrating for them... like Heart as she learned to read... but I was more than happy to cuddle up with them and share this beautiful series together. It was truly magical.
