Series Review: The Unicorn Chronicles

Since you all obviously know, thanks to yesterday's post, that I love Bruce Coville's work, I figured that today would be a good time to tell you why! For my book review today I want to tell you about Bruce Coville's series, The Unicorn Chronicles. If there is a series that affected me more than any other when I was growing up, it is this one. I even remember the day I first discovered them at the library. I was perusing the shelves and one particular book caught my eye. The cover featured a young girl with long red hair, just like me, and next to her was a gorgeous unicorn. I picked up the book and was rather distrought when I discovered that the book was book two in a series and book one wasn't at that library. Gosh though, was it worth the wait to get the first book! This series instantly captured my love and imagination and I still read them today. Luckily for you, the series is complete now. There was a freaking ten year gap in between books two and three and I seriously thought I was going to die!

Luckily though, books three and four appeared, and I am happy to note that there are also two short stories available that involved the world of Luster and the characters from The Unicorn Chronicles. I bought them yesterday and I am absolutely freaking out to read them. You'd think I was a twelve-year-old girl again! With that said, these books are not only for twelve years olds, nor are they only for girls. Bruce Coville has such a way with crafting a story that it is breathtaking and anyone who loves children't literature, a.k.a. juvenile fiction, and/or fantasy, will love this series. I think Coville's outstanding number of published books as well as the success of those books testifies to his abilities.

In my post yesterday I also mentioned Coville's company Full Cast Audio. The books in this series are narrated by that company, and let me just tell you, they are stunning! If you are an audiobook fan, then run out and grab yourself a copy of these books! I currently own the paperbacks and audiobooks of books one and two, and I should really get going on the last two books. I think what has held me back is that they redesigned the covers when book three finally arrived, and I prefer the old ones, but the stories are still incredible.

If there is one thing I really want to say about this series, it is that Bruce Coville created this world of unicorns, and he went into such depth into the lives of unicorns that I have always pictured unicorns that way. That ended up being a sort of problem when I wanted to include unicorns in one of my own books as I quickly realized that I wanted them to be as he has described, but his portrayal is so fantastic that I don't really care. 

So, of course we want pictures, right? So, here are the old covers, the ones that grabbed my attention about ten years ago when I was a child:

And here is what they look like now:

 

So, in all seriousness, you should run out there and get yourself copies of ALL these books, including the two new short stories, which you can find on Amazon or www.brucecoville.com and then you should rush back here and tell me how much you love them :)

- Heidi Nicole Bird