The Naughtiest Unicorn at Sports Day

Pip Bird's The Naughtiest Unicorn at Sports Day is the second book about Mira and Dave, a very silly Unicorn School story for 6 year olds where a unicorn who'd much rather be eating has to help win a trophy.

What happens

Mira Desai has been up since 5 a.m. making a present for her unicorn. It's a lunch box. (Dave is very keen on lunch. Also breakfast and dinner.)

Dave is round and scruffy, with very short legs. He's naughty, lazy and greedy. He's also Mira's UBFF (Unicorn Best Friend Forever), and nobody makes her laugh the way he does.

Her big sister Rani has a perfect sparkly unicorn and loads of medals. She also says Dave is the rubbishest unicorn in the world. Mira's comeback is that rubbishest isn't a word.

So when Unicorn School announces a sports day, with a trophy and a mystery quest for the winners, Mira badly wants to win. Rani is on another team, which makes it worse.

Mira's team ends up called the Sloths. Their captain is busy with a magazine. Two boys called Tom have both pulled a muscle sitting down.

Then odd things start happening, and only to Team Sloth. Their alarm clock stops. Their tracksuits vanish, so they compete in whatever's in the lost property bin. Their eggs are cracked before the Egg and Spoonicorn race has even started.

Is somebody trying to make them lose? Mira is SURE she knows who. She hasn't actually seen anyone do anything, though, and sooner or later somebody is going to ask her for proof.

Dave, meanwhile, strolls along the start line eating the eggs off other people's spoons.

It's very daft and it rattles along, one event after another. Mira's team talk is borrowed from her mum's gym instructor and opens by calling everyone lazy WEAKLINGS. Her friend Raheem never goes anywhere without an emergency bum bag (map, spare socks, one biscuit).

Worth knowing before you hand it over

There's a LOT of poo and farting. Dave leaves a heap on the assembly hall floor, the hoops get swapped for a bucket of unicorn poo, and he has a fart for most occasions. Your reader will probably howl (you might not).

The two sisters are pretty horrible to each other as well, headlock included. Any house with two children who compete over everything will find that very familiar.

What to read next

For more of Dave, try The Naughtiest Unicorn at Christmas, another one from Unicorn School. Mira's after a medal again, this time for Star of the Show in the class play, and she already knows every line by heart.