Books like My Sister Is a Unicorn — picked by fans

My only granddaughter and her love and fascination with unicorns is the reason why I dedicated Mysty the Mystical Unicorn to her! I hope that Mysty inspires children everywhere to focus on their imagination, creativity and to always believe in themselves! My desire to write a children’s picture book started at a very young age, reading is a passion of mine that my own children inherited and now my grandchildren too! My wish is that all children will love Mysty and enjoy her adventures as well as the five books that I have recommended. Always keep on believing in magic, miracles, and yourselves!

My only granddaughter and her love and fascination with unicorns is the reason why I dedicated Mysty the Mystical Unicorn to her! I hope that Mysty inspires children everywhere to focus on their imagination, creativity and to always believe in themselves! My desire to write a children’s picture book started at a very young age, reading is a passion of mine that my own children inherited and now my grandchildren too! My wish is that all children will love Mysty and enjoy her adventures as well as the five books that I have recommended. Always keep on believing in magic, miracles, and yourselves!

My only granddaughter and her love and fascination with unicorns is the reason why I dedicated Mysty the Mystical Unicorn to her! I hope that Mysty inspires children everywhere to focus on their imagination, creativity and to always believe in themselves! My desire to write a children’s picture book started at a very young age, reading is a passion of mine that my own children inherited and now my grandchildren too! My wish is that all children will love Mysty and enjoy her adventures as well as the five books that I have recommended. Always keep on believing in magic, miracles, and yourselves!

My only granddaughter and her love and fascination with unicorns is the reason why I dedicated Mysty the Mystical Unicorn to her! I hope that Mysty inspires children everywhere to focus on their imagination, creativity and to always believe in themselves! My desire to write a children’s picture book started at a very young age, reading is a passion of mine that my own children inherited and now my grandchildren too! My wish is that all children will love Mysty and enjoy her adventures as well as the five books that I have recommended. Always keep on believing in magic, miracles, and yourselves!

Growing up as an only child, books and animals were hugely important to me – they were my friends and I really wanted to believe in a magic that would allow me to talk to animals and them to me. I have now written over 250 books and pretty much all of them have either magic or animals in or a combination of both – unicorns, ponies that turn into magical horses, star animals who teach the children they bond with how to do magic, mermaids with sea creatures as pets. I really love to write – and read – about magical animals and their very lucky human friends!

I’m a Scottish writer and have an interest in Scotland’s many mythical creatures. My home country is inhabited by a myriad of mythical creatures, including kelpies, bogles, and mysterious Highland merfolk and I’m sure the natural environment plays a part. The inspiration behind my children’s fantasy novel Guardians of the Wild Unicorns was the fact that the unicorn is Scotland’s national animal. It seemed bizarre that Scotland opted for a mythical creature as a national animal, but when I started to do research into why, all became clear. People in the past believed unicorns were real. Unicorns have a long and proud history in Scotland and were chosen as a symbol of strength, independence, and dignity.

When I was writing my first novel, The Garden at the Roof of the World, I tried hard to accurately represent how the unicorn was understood in the medieval world. As my characters transversed Europe, the near east, India, and Nepal, they encountered many people with a strong and abiding love for unicorns. To portray how people understood unicorns, I had to do a lot of research. These books taught me the myths and legends of unicorns that my characters would encounter on their journey. Fans of the novel encouraged the publisher to put out a companion book about unicorns, where I decided to explore the history of the idea of the unicorn from the very real beast that inspired the myths, through the evolution of the myths over time to the present day. I became fascinated, learning how the unicorn was once thought to be the servant of the devil, dragging people to hell. Learning how the Great Khan halted his invasion of India when he was stopped by a unicorn who he believed to be a messenger from the Gods. I even learned that the Sumerian Goddess of Love likened her clitoris to a unicorn’s horn. A far cry from the meek beast that would seek out a virgin.

When I was writing my first novel, The Garden at the Roof of the World, I tried hard to accurately represent how the unicorn was understood in the medieval world. As my characters transversed Europe, the near east, India, and Nepal, they encountered many people with a strong and abiding love for unicorns. To portray how people understood unicorns, I had to do a lot of research. These books taught me the myths and legends of unicorns that my characters would encounter on their journey. Fans of the novel encouraged the publisher to put out a companion book about unicorns, where I decided to explore the history of the idea of the unicorn from the very real beast that inspired the myths, through the evolution of the myths over time to the present day. I became fascinated, learning how the unicorn was once thought to be the servant of the devil, dragging people to hell. Learning how the Great Khan halted his invasion of India when he was stopped by a unicorn who he believed to be a messenger from the Gods. I even learned that the Sumerian Goddess of Love likened her clitoris to a unicorn’s horn. A far cry from the meek beast that would seek out a virgin.

No one would ever describe me as a unicorn. I’m not graceful. My mane of hair is half an inch long. And I rarely (if ever) prance. I’m a donkey in a party hat and that’s perfectly okay with me. But sometimes it can be kinda rough in a world that tells you that you must be gorgeous instead of goofy, fabulous instead of funny. So I love stories that make me feel a little less alone in my awkwardness – that remind me that all of us, from the most beautiful unicorn to the weirdest little goblin, are not quite what they seem.  

I love mythological creatures! I grew up gravitating toward fantasy books but because I have a narcissistic parent, I got teased for reading them. To avoid the teasing, I ended up reading a lot of mythology because that was a “safe” fantasy option; reading mythology was “educational” rather than “silly.”  When I got older, I discovered that there’s a whole category of fantasy books that retell myths from alternative points of view. This subgenre opened new doors of understanding and empathy for me. Reading old stories from new perspectives opens my eyes to a myriad of different types of people and broadens my view of the world. And I’ve been reading them ever since.