Unicorn Academy 1 – Sophia and Rainbow

Julie Sykes' Sophia and Rainbow is a unicorn school story for 7 year olds about a girl who gets the unicorn of her dreams and then feels bad for loving him.

What happens

Sophia is ten, which on Unicorn Island means it's finally time for Unicorn Academy. Every new pupil gets paired with a young unicorn on their first day, and each unicorn finds out its own magic during the year.

The pairing scene is lovely. Sophia spots a unicorn with a rainbow mane and tail across the hall and just KNOWS. And he's hers!

The catch is Clover. He's her shaggy old pony back home, far too stiff to race any more, and the night before she left she promised him she'd never love another unicorn as much. So every time Rainbow makes her laugh, she feels like she's letting Clover down. (Rainbow, who only wants to be best friends forever, can't work out why she keeps going quiet on him.)

Then something starts going wrong with Sparkle Lake, the magic water every unicorn needs to drink. The colours go dull and it smells a bit off. Unicorns lose control of their powers, and Ms Primrose warns the whole school might have to close.

Worse, stuck-up Valentina tells everyone Sophia is the one spoiling the lake.

Sophia's feelings are right there on the page, from the homesick first night to the tears she brushes away so nobody thinks she's a crybaby. Her new friend Ava is just the friend you'd want for her. She's gentle and kind, and furious with anyone who's mean to animals (when the boys hide frogs in everyone's grooming kits, Billy gets a proper telling off).

There's lots of fun too, from races to a splashy gallop straight into the lake. And the unicorns talk, so they squabble like brothers and sisters.

It's worth knowing it gets a little tense later on. Sophia finds a horrible note pushed under her door and decides to run away. A chase into the out-of-bounds woods ends at the bottom of a pit with snakes in it. Nothing is told in a scary way, but a child who's nervous about starting somewhere new might like you close by for those chapters.

If you've got a reader who's ever missed a pet, or felt torn between an old friend and a new one, Sophia will make a lot of sense to them.

What to read next

If this one goes down well, smiley Scarlett from Sophia's dorm gets her own turn in the second book, Scarlett and Blaze. She's a jump-mad girl with a cheeky unicorn, and their winter at the academy turns out to be a very cold one.