Bookish Thoughts

Song of the Wanderer is the much anticipated (by me, anyway) sequel to Brian Coville's Into the Land of the Unicorns . It follows Cara's journey to reunite with her grandmother, last seen in the first chapter of the first book, and bring her back to Luster. She sets out from the Queen's court with a decent-sized group that keeps growing larger over the course of her journey, until she eventually finds her grandmother, has a tense confrontation with Beloved, hater and hunter of the Unicorns, and makes it safely back to the Queen's court. The group Cara travels with is a bit unwieldy, and some of the characters end up getting the shaft. Two of the unicorns are just barely sketched out, more caricatures than actual characters. I was beyond excited when the Dimblethum returned, as he was by far my favorite character in the first book. I was less enthralled by the gryphon, who does the too-cute I'm not actually cussing because this is a children's book...

As a small child I was obsessed with this book and, by extension, unicorns in general. But I can basically trace that obsession right back to this very book. Into the Land of the Unicorns may have been one of my most read books as a child. It was certainly one of the most influential, at least in the early years. There isn't anything particularly special about this book. It's a fairly generic story about a girl who travels to a fantastical land, meets a bunch of cool creatures, and travels through said land on a quest. But it was probably the first time I encountered that formula, and boy did I fall in love. There are your standard unicorns and dragons. But there's also the Dimblethum, who's like a more mature version of Ludo from Labyrinth and the Squijum, a cross between a squirrel and a monkey. There's also a decent sense of history about this world. The main character, Cara, is all tied up in it thanks to her family. Her ancestor believes all un...