McCaughrean (Silver Treasure, p. 144, etc.) fashions a legend for the unicorns that gets hung up on idolatry: These creatures are too wonderful, too selfless for their own good. Noah is on the ark, unhappy with the look of the sky and feeling those first few drops. All the creatures are headed his way, but a few need help, and the unicorns are there, ferrying balky tortoises across the water, nudging forward a deer mired in muck, warming a soaked butterfly until it can fly, and more. These kind deeds delay the unicorns too long and they miss the boat. Even worse, Noah suggests that vanity, fecklessness, or slowness delayed the unicornsironically, the very behaviors that caused the others problems in the first place. The unicorns and their children become the ocean's waves. That last piece of treacle finishes off the story, which lacks drama, crisis, and scale. Windham's watercolors, with their eclectic imagery, are the book's one source of epic endeavor. (Picture book. 5-9)
