Unicorn-Themed Children's Media Challenge

[osprey_archer]

entwashian and I got to talking, as we do, about unicorns.

"Hey," quoth entwashian, "Did you ever read those Bruce Coville unicorn books?"

"Oh yes!" quoth I. "The first book when I was nine and the second book about six million years later when it finally came out..." and I embarked on a quest through the dark internets to discover if the trilogy ever reached completion. "BTW do you know that the FOURTH book has just been published???"

We agreed that we had fallen tragically out of touch with the world of children's unicorn books.

And thus! Thus was born the Unicorn-Themed Children's Media Challenge, in which intrepid adult persons peruse unicorn books, watch unicorn movies, and contemplate sparkly unicorn stickers, in service of the beautiful cause of reinvigorating our unicorn knowledge. (Or perhaps the cause of superciliously sneering at the Degradation of the Unicorn Mythos, the way people bemoan the Degradation of the Vampire Mythos. Whatever floats your boat.)

Until we meet again...I am off to immerse myself in the glorious pages of Princess Isabella and the Snow White Unicorn!

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

(I think there is Venn overlap between your first book in the challenge and >>Tiara-themed<< books. Did you notice the parenthetical after the title? The tiara club? ... Just saying.)

PPS--sorry for the smirky snarking. kids in the age group would probably like the books :-)

PPPS--and actually, I meant to put this postscript after the other, more snarky, comment.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Hey, tiaras are fun! Provided someone else is wearing them, because I never could keep them on my head. (Why is tiara themed in >><<?) I do seem to have found the silliest unicorn book published in the last five years. It's been an intellectually taxing summer. I need something silly!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Oh, I only put it in inverted arrow marks like that as a variation on asterisks, which I use to emphasize things when I don't feel like putting them in italics.

And tiaras are quite pretty, though as a kid, when I pretended to be a princess, I always wore a circlet and nothing else. Understatement, baby, understatement.

(... and seriously, I do know it's not fair to mock; forgive me? It's just... the scroll of sweetness underneath the title at Amazon--did you see it?)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

No worries. The main tragic side effect is that now I want to read them all (it would only take about two hours...) and report back in great detail.

I will not, however, go so far as to join the actual Tiara Club (http://www.tiaraclub.co.uk/). That's just too much.

P.S. Statistics

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Did you see that the author has written over 100 children's books!

Also, did you see some of the other books in the tiara club series?

Princess Hannah and the Little Black Kitten?
Princess Lucy and the Precious Puppy?
Princess Ellie and the Enchanted Fawn?

btw, Princess Hannah is the only one with a dark skin tone (oh: except for Princess Jasmine in The Midnight Masquerade with Princess Emma and Princess Jasmine. oh--wait again--no, I spoke too soon--there are more of these books. Princess Lucy, who meets an enchanted whale, is also a person of color, as is Princess Rachel. And Princess Leah is pale skinned, but has glasses and wears capris instead of a dress!

Re: P.S. Statistics

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I would be really surprised if these books didn't have a fairly good-sized smattering of princesses of color. Children's series books always do - the Baby-sitters club, the Magic Attic Club, Disney Girls...

...I read basically everything as a child.

The publishers also always make sure that the characters of color are represented as such on the covers, in the illustrations, etc., up until YA books, at which point they start whitewashing the covers. I guess they think diversity is good for kids but not something actual adults are interested in?

Re: P.S. Statistics

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yeah, as if diversity is something that's good for you, like eating your vegetables or wearing a bike helmet--but when you're a grown-up, or approaching one, you get to shrug off all that stuff.

Crazy.

Re: P.S. Statistics

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Diversity: the new asparagus?

Incidentally, popped by the library to look the books over. It looks like about a third of the heroines are characters of color - going by the covers, at least, because the characters don't get much written physical description. (Aside from the ball gowns and tiaras.) But I suspect most eight-year-olds happily go by the covers.

Re: P.S. Statistics

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

That's good to know.