freaky unicorn day

For anyone familiar with the Freaky Friday movie (or book), you’ll know that it’s a story about a mother who changes places with her teenage daughter for a day. And now, Phoebe and her unicorn Marigold change places for a day to find out what each other’s life is like. The experiment is not entirely successful. I mean, if you like muffins, it went well. If you expect the sky not to be plaid, then you might consider the swap differently.

But Phoebe and Marigold are friends no matter what, even through the Forgetting Spells and the nose-booping, and the shiny rock with the quartz that looks like a smile. Despite the Butterfly of Doom, they find happiness. And while Phoebe gets bullied at school by Dakota, and Marigold steals horn cozies (socks) from Phoebe’s father, they find in each other a new perspective on their lives and relationships.

The thing I love about the friendship between Phoebe and her unicorn is the sweetness and the honesty. They are themselves together, and they bring out the best in each other. At one point in the book, they talk about collective nouns, and it turns out that the collective noun for unicorn is a blessing. That is how I feel about Marigold and about Phoebe too, that they are a blessing. They are a innocence and wisdom, laughter and snark, reality and magic. And these books continue to pick me up when I’m feeling down, alone, and vulnerable.

If you are buying this book for a younger reader, there is a glossary at the back to introduce readers to some of the more challenging words used in the book, like ambivalence, visage, coincidence, and doppelganger. Phoebe is only nine, so Unicorn for a Day is appropriate for younger readers, but some of the humor will be hard for them to understand, so it offers something special for older readers as well.

I’ve been a fan of Dana Simpson’s Phoebe and Her Unicorn Adventures for many years now, and I enjoyed Unicorn for a Day very much. None of the storylines here are long, so you can pop in and read a few pages or you can sit with a tasty drink and read the whole thing at once. Either way, these friends will leave you feeling warm and comforted and a little sad that you can’t have a unicorn best friend of your own. But it’s still just a lot of fun, wild imaginings, and colorful illustrations, and who doesn’t want more of that in their life?

Egalleys for Unicorn for a Day were provided by Andrews McMeel Publishing through Edelweiss, with many thanks.