Julie Sykes’ Ariana and Whisper is a Unicorn Academy story for 7 year olds about a girl who’d much rather stay clean than go on an adventure.<\/p>\n
It’s book 8 in the series. Ariana likes things neat. She packed and repacked her suitcase before she arrived, and now she shares Diamond dorm with four girls who are nothing like her (especially Matilda, whose clothes live on the floor).<\/p>\n
Her unicorn Whisper is a sweetheart with flowers patterned on his coat. He also LOVES mud. Ariana would happily spend all morning plaiting his mane, while Whisper just wants to gallop off and find his magic.<\/p>\n
Then the animals start turning up. A spider with red stripes in the dorm. Mice on the path. A storm raccoon asleep in the stables, which causes total chaos before Miki tempts it down with a cookie. Something is driving creatures out of the woods, and the whole school is sent to find out why.<\/p>\n
Who wants to be the scaredy-cat on a trip to the woods? Ariana really doesn’t. She’s frightened of spiders, she hates being teased, and finding Matilda’s drawing of her squealing at a butterfly really stings.<\/p>\n
That’s what makes this one so lovely to read. You’re right there with Ariana as she gets her dorm-mates wrong. The teasing isn’t meant to hurt, and she slowly starts to see it. There’s a very sweet moment when she offers to help Matilda fold her clothes.<\/p>\n
And the careful one turns out to be super useful. Her backpack full of just-in-case things gets laughed at, right up until a scarlet-horned cobra rears up on the path and her torch saves the day!<\/p>\n
There are some properly tense moments with wild animals in the woods. If your reader doesn’t like creepy-crawlies, though, they’ll be firmly on Ariana’s side from the very first page.<\/p>\n
If you’ve got a reader who likes everything just so, they’ll probably see a bit of themselves in her. And if they’re more of a Matilda, they’ll find the whole thing very funny.<\/p>\n
For the book before this one, try Rosa and Crystal. Rosa has only been at the academy a month, and she’s trying to get the five very different girls of Diamond dorm to do anything at all together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Julie Sykes’ Ariana and Whisper is a Unicorn Academy story for 7 year olds about a girl who’d much rather stay clean than go on an adventure. It’s book 8 in the series. Ariana likes things neat. She packed and repacked her suitcase before she arrived, and now she shares Diamond dorm with four girls […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14125,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":14124,"lr_next_read_anchor":"Rosa and Crystal","lr_seo_hook":"A tidy girl, a mud-loving unicorn and wild animals leaving the woods.","lr_series_id":107,"lr_series_name":"Unicorn Academy","lr_series_position":8,"lr_series_label":"","lr_author_order":""},"book_tag":[27],"age_group":[19],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[517],"class_list":["post-14126","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-fantasy-books","age_group-books-for-7-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-julie-sykes"],"yoast_title":"Unicorn Academy 8 – Ariana and Whisper by Julie Sykes | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A tidy girl, a mud-loving unicorn and wild animals leaving the woods. For ages 7+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n