Unicorn Academy 9 – Matilda and Pearl

Julie Sykes' Matilda and Pearl is a Unicorn Academy story for 7 year olds about a messy, giggly artist and a unicorn who can't stand still.

What happens

It's book 9 in the series. Matilda draws everything. Butterflies, unicorns, the school hall, and snooty Valentina with the head of a frog (Valentina is NOT impressed). What Matilda doesn't do is listen, read lists or remember where she left her pencils.

Pearl is just as goofy. She spends the first chapter acting out every kind of magic she might get, until Matilda tells her she looks like a circus pony! It's summer, they're halfway through the year, and Pearl still hasn't found her magic.

Then Diamond dorm head off on their first camping trip, with a scavenger hunt and a mystery prize. Matilda forgets her sleeping bag. Ruby dorm are cheating. And in the middle of the woods, the oldest tree on the island is dying, with a crowd of terrified pink chinchillas huddled at its roots.

Odd things keep happening too. Matilda draws wings on Pearl without meaning to. She spots her sleeping bag by the heather, runs over, and it turns into a bush. Your reader will probably have a theory long before Matilda does!

What makes it is Matilda herself. She's the dorm joker, leaping out as a vampire bat and inventing a "three-headed, snotty-nose flapdoodle" just to make Ariana laugh.

So it really hits home when her friends lose patience with her. Being called useless by your own dorm-mates is a horrible feeling, and Matilda works very hard to stop them seeing her cry.

Valentina's unkind words sting too. Even Matilda, who usually shrugs everything off, starts to wonder if the others wish she wasn't on their team.

Got a reader who always has their head in a sketchbook (or a daydream)? They'll be rooting for her the whole way. There's a mysterious cloaked rider in the woods too, so plenty to keep the pages turning.

What to read next

If they'd like the other side of the story, try Ariana and Whisper, the book before this one. It's tidy Ariana's turn, sharing a dorm with Matilda's mess and convinced the spider in it came in on Matilda's clothes.