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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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!<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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. 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14127,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":14126,"lr_next_read_anchor":"Ariana and Whisper","lr_seo_hook":"A forgetful artist, a goofy unicorn and a dying tree deep in the woods.","lr_series_id":107,"lr_series_name":"Unicorn Academy","lr_series_position":9,"lr_series_label":"","lr_author_order":""},"book_tag":[27],"age_group":[19],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[517],"class_list":["post-14128","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 9 – Matilda and Pearl by Julie Sykes | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A forgetful artist, a goofy unicorn and a dying tree deep in the woods. For ages 7+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n