Book Review: Song Of The Wanderer, by Bruce Coville

Song of the Wanderer by Bruce Coville
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Song Of The Wanderer, by Bruce Coville (The Unicorn Chronicles, Book #2)
★★★ ½ (rounding up to 4)

Synopsis: Cara must return to Earth to save her grandmother, the Wanderer. But to do so, Cara must first travel through the wilderness of Luster, land of the unicorns, and to the back of the dragon Ebillan’s cave. Only there will she find the gate that can bring her back home.
As Cara embarks on the journey of her live, there is one person who stands in her way: Beloved, Cara’s ancient ancestor, who has spent a lifetime dedicated to ridding the earth of unicorns. Is Cara strong enough to resist Beloved’s ruthless magic and trickery?
In A Sentence: An enjoyable story that made me feel nostalgic

My Thoughts: Wow, this story took me back! I was 11 when this novel first came out in 1999, and I only read it a couple of times back, because it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger and I couldn’t stand the anticipation for the third book (which by the way, didn’t come out until 2008). It is a good children’s novel, however. It takes new twists and turns that go beyond a simple and adorable story. I mean, the first book,Into The Land Of The Unicorns, was every girl’s dream; how wonderful would it be if you could enter a beautiful world where you couldn’t get sick, and where you can meet fantastical creatures like unicorns and dragons. There were some serious points, of course, but mostly it was just a cutesy story.
This installment took it beyond a little girl’s fantasy. In this book, the good guys have to struggle a bit and not everything gets resolved and tied in a neat little bow. But Cara still gets to make new friends and she gets more answers to some unsolved questions.
I loved the first book and I really enjoyed the second one. It’s a series I would have loved to continue as a child. My biggest complaint is that it took Bruce Coville almost ten years to publish book #3, by which point I was an adult who was interested in reading about something other than lovely and helpful unicorns. But I’m still interested in finishing the final two books to see what happened next.


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