Do you believe in unicorns? (My Magical World of Unicorns - Carol Lawson)

Name: kingfisher111

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Product:	My Magical World of Unicorns - Carol Lawson
Date:	20/07/07 (148 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good story and illustratios, very practical

Disadvantages: none!

Any book that has a pink cover and is described as a 'glittery jigsaw book' is bound to be a hit with my daughter, so we were both really pleased when she was given this book for her fourth birthday! The book is a combination of lovely short stories and beautiful illustrations which are actually jigsaw puzzles for your little one to complete.

When you open the book, on the first page the first thing you read is:

'Do you believe in unicorns? If you do, then one day you may see one.
If you don't they will always be invisible to you!'

My daughter loves this opening and it prompted a lot of discussions about what unicorns were. As a consequence, she definitely believes in unicorns now, and is convinced that she will see one any day now!

There are five separate stories in this book each with it's own double page spread and each containing its own 32 piece jigsaw puzzle. The story with a smaller picture of the puzzle (for reference) is on one page and the puzzle is on the other. All the pages are in pastel colours and are adorned with lots of stars, leaves, flowers, butterflies etc. The pages are all of thick card which is absolutely necessary in order to contain the puzzles. All the puzzles are circular and fit into the same size circle on the page. When you first get the book each page is protected by a see through plastic sheet which envelopes the page and keeps the puzzle in place. If you are careful, this can be slid on and off so you will be able to keep on protecting the puzzles and hopefully not lose any pieces. I think this is a really good idea as we always seem to be losing bits of puzzles.

When you do the puzzle for the first time you have to break all the pieces apart. This is quite tricky and fiddly for a little one so they will probably need some help. After that it does get a lot easier though. Each puzzle is a beautiful illustration relating to one of the stories. They are all exquisitely drawn with so much detail that can provide lots of different talking points. My daughter always loves telling me what she can see. With 32 fairly small pieces the puzzles present a certain amount of challenge. First time round my daughter wanted quite a lot of help, but as the puzzles become more familiar she copes very well on her own.

The different stories in the book tell of different types of unicorn (I don't suppose you realised there was more than one!) These are the Meadow Unicorn, the Mountain Unicorn, as well as the Rainbow, Messenger and Forest Unicorns. Each has their own simple story. For example, the Meadow Unicorn rescues a princess who is trapped in her castle singing sad songs because she is afraid of the fire breathing dragon outside. When the Meadow dragon danced, magical flowers grew which caused the dragon to sneeze which meant it couldn't breathe fire any more! When it grew tired of sneezing, it slunk away and the princess could come out once more! All the stories are told with quite simple language which makes it easy for little children to remember and retell.

At the end of each story there is also a little counting activity. For example, 'how many birds can you see in the picture?' I like this because this really encourages my daughter to look at the pictures and then she starts to notice all sorts of other things as well! At the end opf the book there are also some further activities including spotting the differences between two pictures, remembering details from the different stories and finding items from the different pictures. All of these really seem to help with my daughter's enjoyment and understanding of the stories.

So overall I really think that this is a great little book. It has been very carefully designed with lovely stories, beautifully illustrated puzzles and lots for your child to look at and think about on every page. Also, with its sturdy, wipe clean pages and plastic protection, i do feel quite confident that it will last us well. It is published by Scholastic and has a RRP of £9.99, which considering that you are getting five 32 piece puzzles as well as some lovely stories does not seem too bad at all!

Summary: An enchanting magical book!