Razzle Dazzle Unicorn

by Dana Simpson

It's nice to have a slew of fun, easy reads sometimes. I'm still enjoying these unicorn comics. More adventures of Phoebe and her best-friend unicorn Marigold Heavenly Nostrils. Quirky, amusing combination of reality and fantasy, poking gentle fun at stereotypical ideas regarding girls who love unicorns. Phoebe is definitely a nerd and into things like role-playing games, but she also likes girly stuff on occasion too. She's not a flat character at all. (A nice touch is the variety of hairstyles and clothing she sports in the comics, there's even a "breaking the fourth wall" moment in one of the strips where she makes a comment about how most comic book characters always look the same- as if they never change their clothes. Haha.) She goes through all kinds of usual kid trials- facing tests at school, popular kids teasing her, misunderstandings with her friends (but never with the unicorn- they question each others' ideas and poke fun at human/unicorn characteristics, but never yet have I seen them have an argument!), generation gap moments with her parents, summer camp. But also things like meeting the monster in the lake again, and another new unicorn (this one is pronounced plain though he doesn't really look it). Helping out her frenemy with a goblin problem. I think my favorite bits were the part where she had to read a book for school, and the very brief joke about origami (my twelve-year-old is into that).

Borrowed from the public library. I think there's only four volumes published so far, so now I will have to wait for another compilation, or start following the daily strip online. Have an idea to go back and read some old Calvin and Hobbes collections I have, just for the fun of it. And the comparison, of course.

Rating: 3/5       184 pages, 2016