Twelve Dancing Unicorns

K-Gr 3—A retelling of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," this story features 12 unicorns belonging to a benevolent king, who keeps them behind a fence. Though they are guarded, each morning their golden chains are found broken. A little girl uses a convenient invisibility cloak to follow them and discovers that they escape each night to feed themselves on the freedom that gives life to their magic. After spending time with the unicorns, she convinces the king that it is in his best interest to let them go; he will be able to visit them in a magical forest if he does. Her reward is a gift of the smallest unicorn, set free each night to dance with her friends. Ready made for the animation generation, Gerard's digitally enhanced images are both lifelike and ethereal and combine light-bathed sketchiness with characters straight out of the movies; indeed, Gerard has a background in illustration for Disney and other film studios. This title is one more in a crowded field, but it stands out for Heyman's voice; it retains the narrative quality of a traditional tale but features a vocabulary and sentence structure simple enough for the young readers who will be attracted to it. Paired with illustrations ready-made for the animation generation, this title will be welcome in larger collections.—Lisa Lehmuller, East Providence School District, RI