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Library | Material Type | Shelf Number | Child Count | Shelf Location | Status | Item Holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... South | Book | SCFIC BEAG | 1 | Science Fiction | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
Searching... South | Book | YA BEAGLE | 1 | Juvenile Fiction | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
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Summary
Summary
In Los Angeles a thirteen-year-old girl follows haunting music across an invisible border into an enchanted land known as Sheirah that is inhabited by satyrs, unicorns, and phoenixes.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
A quarter century after the publication of his bestselling novel The Last Unicorn, Beagle (The Innkeeper's Song) returns to his fabled beasts for a charming fantasy initially set in contemporary Los Angeles. A misfit 13-year-old girl, Joey Rivera, hears mysterious music and encounters an even more mysterious boy who calls himself Indigo. Thus begins a quest that leads Joey to the faerie land of Shei'rah, source of the music and home of the Old Ones, unicorns who are menaced by blindness. Indigo is a unicorn who has preferred to remain in our world in human form, but he helps Josephine to take her grandmother to Shei'rah and to cure the plague of blindness. The story is slight, but the characterizations are grand, enhanced by graceful prose laced with exquisite detail, and through both literary creativity and folkloric expertise where unicorns are concerned. The return to unicorns and the massive promotional effort behind the novel should put Beagle's name before the public in a way that it has deserved to be for many years. Eleven full-color illustrations by Robert Rodriguez, not seen by PW. $100,000 ad/promo; author tour. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Familiar territory for the author of The Innkeeper's Song (1993), etc. In Woodmont, Los Angeles, young Josephina ``Joey'' Rivera spends much of her spare time helping out in old John Papas's dusty music shop. One day, in steps a striking young man, Indigo, with an unusual horn he hopes to sell for gold--more gold, indeed, than Papas can readily lay his hands on. On the horn Indigo plays a strange, haunting music that, even when he leaves, Joey can still hear; following the music, she unwittingly steps into another world, Shei'rah, where the Eldest--unicorns--live. Joey is befriended by Ko, a shaggy, lovable satyr, and by eager young unicorn Touriq; sadly, she learns from Lord Sinti that all the Eldest are going blind, for reasons none can fathom. Returning home, Joey finds that Indigo (another Eldest) prefers to live on Earth in human form; selling his horn will enable him to live comfortably, though without it he cannot return to Shei'rah. On her next visit to Shei'rah, Joey brings along her beloved, wise grandmother, Abuelita, who remembers an old folk remedy for blindness whose chief ingredient is--gold! So Indigo must relinquish his gains in order to save the Eldest, whose blindness he caused in the first place with his greed for gold. This slight, insubstantial fable has lyrical intentions, but ends up just self-consciously picturesque; though the strained, flimsy plotting and blurry details don't help, Beagle's deserved renown as a leading unicornologist might carry readers along. (11 full-color illustrations, not seen) ($100,000 ad/promo; author tour)
Booklist Review
A strangely beautiful boy named Indigo comes into Papas Music one afternoon. He plays some ethereal music on a strange horn that he says he'll sell for gold. But when supposedly poor John Papas proffers a stash of gold coins, he hesitates and then seems to vanish. Thirteen-year-old Joey Rivera, who helps Papas in exchange for theory lessons, can't forget the music: she hears it beckoning beneath everyday traffic. Following it one day, she crosses a shimmering border into Shei'rah, an idyllic land of benign satyrs, tiny dragons, water sprites, and, over all these and other fantastic creatures, the Eldest, a race of unicorns. The music emanates from the place and especially from the Eldest, whose only woe is a mysterious blindness that of late has beset them early in their millennia-long lives. Returning to her world after what seems a long time, Joey finds only minutes have elapsed on Earth. She goes back to Shei'rah several times, learns that Indigo is actually a unicorn who wants to become human because then he'll be able to make life choices, and finally brings her abuelita along to help cure the blindness (Indigo, however, holds the trump card for the cure). In this slight fairy romance, America's finest gentle fantasist manages to point up the best qualities of both real life and fantasy, of both Earth and Shei'rah. (Reviewed Aug. 1996)1570362882Ray Olson
Library Journal Review
Beagle's best-selling The Last Unicorn (1968) spawned a host of (mostly wretched) unicorn novels. This follow-up features a misunderstood teenager who enters a magical land. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.