The Librariest

I just finished reading this to a class of 2nd graders. Towards the end of the school year, I like to play Russian Roulette by choosing books of unknown content off the shelf and spending a few weeks reading them to what I hope is an age appropriate grade. When I began I Believe in Unicorns I assumed I would be reading a small fantasy novel somewhere along the lines of My Father's Dragon. Oops. This chapterless narrative begins with a little boy’s visit to the local library. He listens while the librarian sits on a wooden unicorn and tells the story of Noah’s Ark, and the last two unicorns swimming in the rain. None of us, the students nor I, were much in love with the book after our first venture. The next week we found out the unicorns did not go to a watery grave but turned into narwhals. Boy, were we relieved. The end of the story finds the boy and his village under siege in an unnamed war. The entire community bands together to save the library in an emotional climax. Spoiler - the Unicorn survives! Possibly not my first choice for a 2nd grade read-aloud, but in the end we all felt the better for finding the story. I divided the other 5 second grade classes between my old favorite, Clementine, and newcomer, How Oliver Olsen changed the World.