The Imaginary Veterinary 4 – The Order of the Unicorn

Suzanne Selfors's The Imaginary Veterinary 4 - The Order of the Unicorn is a fantasy for 7 year olds set in a hospital that treats sasquatches and dragons and pretends to treat worms.

What happens

Pearl Petal lives above her family's Dollar Store in Buttonville and has, this week, become an apprentice to Dr Woo. Dr Woo is a vet for Imaginary creatures. Her hospital is the old button factory, her sign says worms, and the entire town believes it.

Pearl's friend Ben is the careful one, the one who checks the gate twice. Pearl is the one everybody calls the town troublemaker, and she is quietly sick of it. This morning the local paper has put her rival Victoria Mulberry on the front page for winning a crown, and Victoria's mother has told the reporter that her daughter doesn't get into trouble like a certain other girl.

Then Mr Tabby, Dr Woo's extremely cat-like assistant, leaves for his once-a-year spa holiday and hands Ben the keys. Before the taxi arrives he tells them there has been a sighting. A human. Somewhere inside the Imaginary World.

The details are the joy of it. Pearl wakes up in shoes a leprechaun made for her and still can't work out what they do. She's tried jumping off the kitchen counter and flapping her arms. She's tried lifting the car. What else is a girl supposed to try?

The day's actual task is trimming a sasquatch's nose hairs to exactly a quarter of an inch, using a device that takes ten batteries. (Mr Tabby, meanwhile, flatly denies having fur.)

It's the fourth book and it doesn't pretend otherwise. Pearl and Ben have already climbed a rain dragon, ridden in a lake monster's mouth and been punished for throwing dragon droppings off a roof, and the story expects you to take all that in your stride. Nothing important is spoiled by starting here.

If your reader likes an ordinary town with a locked gate at the end of it, this is a nice fit. There's a busybody blocking the pavement, a great-aunt who has knitted the sofa, and a secret worth keeping on the other side.

What to read next

If the pull is a creature that shouldn't exist and the person quietly caring for it, try The Unicorn in the Barn. Eric Harper spots what he takes for a white deer in the woods behind his house, except deer don't have a coat like a pearl or an ivory horn.