While in New York City recently, I discovered today’s Perfect Picture Book. I had to share this heart-warming tale with you.
Title: Beatrix and the Unicorn
Written & Illustrated By: Lita Judge
Publisher/Date: Atheneum Books for Young Readers/2026
Suitable for Ages: 4-8
Themes/Topics: unicorns, fantasy, friendship, loneliness, dreams, Medieval period, tapestry
Opening:
Long ago and far away, a girl named Beatrix woke each day to do her chores.
Brief Synopsis: Beatrix, a servant girl, is lonely and longs to meet the real unicorn depicted in a tapestry.
Links to Resources:
· Check out these free unicorn activities;
· Learn about tapestries and create one;
· Beatrix is lonely and yearns to find a creature that is beautiful, soft, and huggable. Do you have a pet or favorite stuffed animal? Describe in words or pictures how your pet or stuffed animal is beautiful, soft, and/or huggable.
Why I Like this Book:
In this fairy tale of a story, Judge introduces readers to young Beatrix, a poor servant girl who longs to meet the unicorn depicted in a large tapestry that covers the wall in the castle’s great hall. Young readers will empathize with Beatrix who toils alone in the dreary castle. Her only joy is seeing the smiling unicorn displayed in the tapestry. Beatrix envisions it as a friend.
What characteristics define the unicorn – Beatrix’s ideal friend? It’s beautiful, soft, and huggable. Most of all, Beatrix believes the unicorn is “[s]omeone to love and who loves her back.”
As in many of the best fairy tales, Beatrix and the Unicorn includes a quest – a quest to find the real unicorn. Beatrix slips from the castle late at night and wanders a “vast and dark” forest as she searches. Does she find the unicorn? I won’t spoil the ending, but Beatrix does find creatures in need of her kindness who befriend and love her.
Judge’s soft watercolor and colored pencil illustrations with detailed borders gracing many spreads are a highlight of this picture book. I love how Judge utilizes light and differing colors to show changing moods, with Beatrix’s sad moments rendered in browns and low lighting and happier moments rendered in brighter color and light.
Anyone looking for a sweet friendship story that transports them to a long-ago, far-away time and place will enjoy this story and perhaps discover friends where they least expect to find them.
A Note about Craft:
Judge is well known for the wood carvings and intricate illustrations she shares in her picture books and on social media. It’s no surprise that she would author a fairy tale, as her artistic style lends itself so well to this type of story, transporting little listeners to imaginative far away lands.
This Perfect Picture Book entry is being added to Susanna Hill’s Perfect Picture Book list. Check out the other great picture books featured there!
Wander, Ponder, Write 