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Title: Unicorn Treasury by Bruce Coville, Tim Hildebrandt ISBN: 0-385-24000-7 Publisher: Doubleday Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1988 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4.71 (7 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: Now I will believe that there are Unicorns.
Comment: I was a homeschooled child who most always found herself, on cozy winter afternoons, with her nose stuck in a book, and an oversized mug of tea beside her. It was through those magical moments that I was able to experience for the first time- fairy tales and places that quite probably didn't exist in this world.

On one of my many frequent visits to the library, I found the Unicorn Treasury, stuck behind some very large volumes of encyclopedias. I promptly rented it, because of the front cover- and the title. Little did I know that in that single moment, I had come into contact with a book that would change my life.

The Unicorn Treasury holds- within its pages- poems that will enchant and delight- and stories that take you away to an ethereal border that dances between reality and fantasy. Upon first reading it- I could hardly believe that so many wonderful things had been collected between covers, and promptly re-read it again.

As a child, I had been fascinated with Unicorns- but was never quite able to find a book to satisfy my cravings. Now, I had. With the magical stories and poems gracing its pages, I learned that Unicorns can be less than perfect- Unicorns can heal telling wounds, both physically and mentally- and Unicorns could sometimes be more real than the world before you.

That book was rented over twenty times by me- and, each time, I delighted in its pages once more. It was because of that book that I fell in love with L'Engle- or reinforced my love of Wrede. It was in that book that I escaped- for however shortly- from the world of the mundane, and negative.

It was that book that drove me to become a Writer.

Now- I write children's stories about fanciful Unicorns- they parade in my heart just as strongly as they used to...

And I have Bruce Coville to thank for that.

Please- if I could ever recommend a book worth reading- this would be it. Step away from our world, for just a moment- and enter a portal to a place that is- all at once- almost too magical or innocent for any of us to ever comprehend.

Rating: 3
Summary: Not as good as I'd hoped
Comment: When I picked up this book, I expected it to be a wonderful collection. Unfortunately, this book is a little overrated.

The introduction (by Bruce Coville) would be wonderful if it were a little bit longer and had refernces. It mentioned several unicorns, including the K'i-lin and the kar-ka-dann, and it discusses various ways artists and writers have portrayed them, some of the ways people thought of unicorns in the Middle Ages, and ends with a beautiful conclusion. But this introduction gives no references to where the author found out about the kar-ka-dann or k'i-lin, or where we can find more depictions of unicorns or more information about unicorns in the Middle Ages. So overall, as nice as the introduction is, I feel that it was written for third-graders.

The stories and poems themselves are spotty. Three are excerpts from novels. (I feel that the section from "The Last Battle" isn't really appropriate, since it's so dark. The excerpt from "A Swiftly Tilting Planet" is wonderful, but can't really do justice to that book. Only the excerpt from "The Transfigured Hart" really works as a short story, and it's unsatisfying in that there's no way the whole novel can be reprinted.)

"The Princess, the Cat, and the Unicorn" is a delightful contribution from Patricia C. Wrede, set in the Enchated Forest world, featuring the most immature unicorn you'll probably ever meet. And "The Unicorn in the Maze" feels like a wonderfully satisfying fairy tale. But I felt that "A Net to Catch the Wind" was overly simplistic and moralistic. "The Paint Box," a poem, was beautiful, but "Starhorn" felt tedious to me. And in "Homeward Bound", I've never been so disappointed by a story by Bruce Coville!

The good stories in here (like Jane Yolen's haunting "the Boy who Drew Unicorns") and "The Unicorn in the Maze" and "The Princess, the Cat, and the Unicorn", plus the wonderful if too-short intorduction, make this worth browsing at least once. But I would not recommend buying it until you're familiar with and love for yourself all of the stories in it.

Rating: 5
Summary: fav. book as child, can't count #of times i read it!!
Comment: this book is full of wonderful stories and poems, not to mention absolutely beautiful artwork. it is a must for any book collection. great for any age to read!