Pearl the helpful unicorn by Sally Odgers and Adele K Thomas

Scholastic, 2020. ISBN: 9781760669287. 121pp.
(Age: 5-8) Pearl the unicorn and her friends Olive the ogre and Tweet the bird have several misadventures in this short illustrated novel. Firstly they try to problem solve together and retrieve a kite from a cliff. Next they try to save a dragon from a bog and prevent themselves from being eaten by gobble-uns. Pearl's efforts to use her magic in tricky situations don't always work and they create humorous mistakes. They are good loyal friends who use their special abilities and cooperate.
This book is unashamedly aiming for a young audience of mainly girls who are currently besotted with unicorns and the colour pink. The digitally created illustrations dominate the page and are in black, white and pink. Some pages only have a few sentences and the large font also has random pink words. Chapters make the book very appealing to emerging independent readers. Also short sentences and the simple repetitious text make this very accessible for them. There will be further Pearl books in the series, which means children will be keen to read them.
Jo Marshall