BEHOLD...THE UNICORNS!
by Gail Gibbons & illustrated by Gail Gibbons
Gibbons follows up Behold . . . the Dragons! (1999) with this look at another class of creatures that “live around the edges of our imagination and in our legends.” Probably spun free-form from travelers’ tales of rhinos, oryxes, and similar exotic beasts, unicorns have been described and depicted in a wide variety of forms, from the romantically magnificent near-horse to legendary Risharinga, the otherwise-human horned son of a Hindu priest. Gibbons illustrates her characteristically terse text with a portrait gallery, done in typically simple style, and adds reproductions of the seven famed Unicorn Tapestries for a discussion of the unicorn as symbol. After recounting legends from India, China, the Middle East, and Europe, and noting that the Biblical “unicorn” was a mistranslation from the Hebrew, she finishes with a page of sundry historical notes dubbed “Unicorn Footprints.” Children who enjoy skating the edges of their own imaginations but aren’t quite ready to tackle Giblin’s The Truth About Unicorns (1991) will pore over this primer. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)