The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

April 2nd, 2008 at 9:18am |

Audience: 10 and up

Rating: B

Synopsis:

In this magical world, unicorns, dragons, wizards, and curses are real and powerful. At least, they were… the unicorn learns that she is the last of her species. She sets out on a journey to find out what has happened to all of her kin, encountering danger, magic, friendship, love, and fairy tales along her way.

Chatter:

(Spoiler Alerts! ) This book’s story is timeless, but its prose isn’t. Some readers may struggle with the author’s writing style. This book is deceptively short; it takes longer to read because there’s no skimming the rich, concentrated narrative.

In the beginning, I felt like the unicorn was such a silly creature. I couldn’t imagine why she would live alone and have no connections to other creatures. This changed the moment she overheard the hunters; I felt such pity for the unicorn when she began to worry about what had happened to rest of her kind. It was an agonizing decision, should she leave the safety of her forest, when it was possibly that she couldn’t change what had already happened? For the first time she feels lonely; missing others she’d never even met.

I was frustrated again when the unicorn became Lady Amalthea and struggled with the unicorn to human transition. At first, she was so cruel to everyone, but as she lost the unicorn part of herself and became more mortal, she also became kind. While it was so sad that she and Lir were separated, it is comforting that she will remember him.

Beagle’s message is sad – the idea that magic is disappearing from our world, and that we don’t recognize it when it’s in front of us. On page 92 Schmendrick says, “Haggard and Lir and Drinn and you and I – we are in a fairy tale, and must go where it goes. But she is real. She is real.” The examples of humans’ inability to distinguish between the fake magic we believe in and the real magic of the world are peppered throughout the book: Mommy Fortuna’s show, the fake Robin Hood, the white “mare,” and even the town of Hagsgate and its curse.