Unicorns book series in reading order

by Dana Simpson

by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

by John Peel

by Paula Harrison

Dana Simpson created Phoebe and Her Unicorn and drew the internet comic strip Ozy and Millie from 1998 to 2008. Simpson grew up in Gig Harbor, Washington, and graduated from The Evergreen State College. Winning the Amazon-sponsored Comic Strip Superstar Contest in 2009 led to a Universal Uclick development deal for Heavenly Nostrils, the strip later renamed Phoebe and Her Unicorn. The catalogue lists 31 books from Phoebe and Her Unicorn (2014) to Unicorn Book Club (2025). Subjects include unicorns, magic, girls, friendship and comic strips.

Mary Stanton, born in Winter Park, Florida in 1947, is an American author known for Unicorns of Balinor, an eight-volume fantasy series for children. As Claudia Bishop, Stanton has written 14 Hemlock Falls mysteries for Berkley Prime Crime and three novels in the Casebooks of Dr. McKenzie series, and has been senior editor of three mystery anthologies. The catalogue lists 43 books from 1984 to 2013, including The Road to Balinor (1988), A Taste for Murder (1994) and A Fete Worse Than Death (2013). Subject tags include the imaginary place Hemlock Falls, New York, women detectives, hotels and unicorns.

Emily Bliss writes the Unicorn Princesses and Pegasus Princesses series, children's fantasy for grades 3-5 with unicorns, magic and princesses among the subjects. Sunbeam's Shine, Flash's Dash, Bloom's Ball and Prism's Paint came out in 2017. Breeze's Blast, Moon's Dance and Feather's Flight followed in 2018, and The Moonbeams and The Wing Spell in 2020. Snow's Slide (2022) is the latest of 16 catalogued books.

Bruce Coville

132 books• 20 series

Bruce Coville has 132 books catalogued from The Foolish Giant (1978) to Aliens, Underwear, and Monsters (2022). Sarah's Unicorn (1979), Operation Sherlock (1986) and The Ghost in the Third Row (1987) are among the early titles. Series include My Teacher Is an Alien, Magic Shop, Unicorn Chronicles, I Was a 6th Grade Alien, Space Brat, Moongobble and Me, Nina Tanleven and A.I. Gang. Extraterrestrials, unicorns, monsters and humour fill the subjects. Coville, born May 16, 1950, writes young adult fiction and first published in 1977.

Unicorns, magic, boarding schools and friendship are the subjects of the 20 catalogued books of Julie Sykes, published between 2019 and 2022 for readers in grades 1 to 3. Each sampled title pairs two names, as in Sophia and Rainbow (2019), Ava and Star (2019) and Sienna and Sparkle (2022). Sykes, a UK-based children's author with over 100 books, often collaborates with Linda Chapman and also writes as Summer Waters and Skye Waters.

Anne McCaffrey

96 books• 20 series

Anne McCaffrey (1 April 1926 to 21 November 2011) was an American writer known for the Dragonriders of Pern science fiction series. McCaffrey was the first woman to win a Hugo Award for fiction, for the novella Weyr Search (1968), and the first to win a Nebula, for Dragonrider (1969). The White Dragon (1978) was among the earliest science fiction books on the New York Times Best Seller list. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America named McCaffrey its 22nd Grand Master in 2005. The catalogue lists 96 books, from Restoree (1967) to Sky Dragons (2011), plus the Acorna, Crystal Singer and Tower and Hive series.

Born in Liverpool on 15 January 1969, Linda Chapman is a British writer whose output is principally series for younger children. Fantasy about unicorns, mermaids and magic is what Chapman is particularly known for. Co-authored titles include Unicorn Academy, Mermaid Academy and Forever Homes with Julie Sykes, plus books written with Michelle Misra, Lee Weatherly and Steve Cole, and the Superpowers series appears under the pseudonym Alex Cliff. The listing is graded 1-3, holds 24 books published between 2007 and 2026, and starts with First Class Friends (2007). Subject tags name unicorns, friendship, magic and Unicorn School.

Terry Brooks

59 books• 20 series

Terry Brooks, born Terence Dean Brooks on January 8, 1944, is an American writer of epic fantasy. The catalogue opens with The Sword of Shannara (1977) and counts 59 books through Brona (2026). Series lines include the Original Shannara, Heritage of Shannara, Genesis of Shannara, Defenders of Shannara and Dark Legacy of Shannara, alongside Word & Void and Viridian Deep, while the Magic Kingdom of Landover is a recurring setting. Two film novelizations belong to the output. Brooks has had 23 New York Times bestsellers and more than 25 million copies in print, and announced a semi-retirement from writing in March 2025.

Jane Yolen

237 books• 22 series

Jane Yolen (Jane Hyatt Yolen, February 11, 1939 to June 11, 2026) was an American author of fantasy, science fiction and children's books. The Devil's Arithmetic, a Holocaust novella, is the best-known Yolen work, and Owl Moon and The Emperor and the Kite are among the others. The short works Sister Emily's Lightship and Lost Girls both won Nebula Awards. The catalogue counts 237 books from The Witch Who Wasn't (1964) to Daddy Plays a Mean Guitar (2026). Series include Commander Toad, How Do Dinosaurs...?, Pit Dragons, the Young Merlin Trilogy, Books of the Great Alta and Tartan Magic. Yolen worked as an editor, collaborated most often with Adam Stemple, and in 2012 became the first woman to give the Andrew Lang lecture.

John Peel's 81 catalogued books begin with The Fireball XL5 Files and Island in the Sky in 1986 and end with It Came From The Isle of Man in 2023. Doctor Who, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are among the names linked to the catalogue. Subjects span science fiction, fantasy, horror, the supernatural and children's fiction. Series include Outer Limits, Shockers, Fear the Year 2099, Dragonhome, Magical States of America and Lucy Wilson Mysteries. Terrance Dicks and Justin Richards each share the credit on 1 book.

Amy Krouse Rosenthal

58 books• 4 series

Amy Krouse Rosenthal (1965-2017) wrote for children and adults, made short films and hosted radio. Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life (2005) is the memoir; Uni the Unicorn, Cookies, Little Pea, Little Hoot and The OK Book sit among more than 30 children's books published from 2005 onward. Rosenthal is the only author to have placed three children's books on the Best Children's Books for Family Literacy list in a single year. The listing holds 58 titles dated 1998 to 2024, at a median of 40 pages.

Meredith Ann Pierce is an American fantasy writer and librarian, born on July 5, 1958, in Seattle. The catalogue lists 10 books from 1982 to 2004 across the Darkangel Trilogy and Firebringer series. The Darkangel (1982) is the first, followed by A Gathering of Gargoyles (1984), Birth of the Firebringer (1985), The Woman Who Loved Reindeer (1985) and Where the Wild Geese Go (1988). The Pearl of the Soul of the World (1990), Dark Moon (1992), The Son of Summer Stars (1996) and Treasure at the Heart of the Tanglewood (2001) come later, and Waters Luminous and Deep (2004) is the newest. Pierce's novels frequently feature mythic worlds and young women who face danger to save their way of life. Aeriel, unicorns, witches and vampires are among the subject headings.

Heather Ayris Burnell writes early readers. Nine catalogued books, published between 2019 and 2024, carry subject headings for children's fiction, unicorns, friendship, sharing and humorous stories. Three of them are dated 2019, among them Sparkly New Friends, and the run reaches Razzle Dazzle in 2024. Burnell is the sole credit on all nine, which run to a median of 64 pages and continue to appear.

Julia Donaldson

349 books• 14 series

Dame Julia Donaldson, born Julia Catherine Shields on 16 September 1948, is a British writer and playwright who served as Children's Laureate from 2011 to 2013. Rhyming stories for children made Donaldson's name, above all those illustrated by Axel Scheffler, such as The Gruffalo, Room on the Broom, Stick Man and Superworm. Donaldson first wrote songs for children's television; the lyrics of A Squash and a Squeeze became a picture book in 1993, and books have been the focus since. The catalogue carries 349 entries, from Tim's Bad Mood and Other Stories (1970) to The Tooth Fairy and the Crocodile (2026), including Tales from Acorn Wood, Princess Mirror-Belle and Zog.

Shannon Hale

62 books• 11 series

Shannon Hale, born Shannon Bryner on January 26, 1974, is an American author mainly of young adult fantasy. Princess Academy (2005) earned a Newbery Honor, and The Goose Girl (2003) opens the catalogue. Austenland (2007), the first novel for adults, became a film in 2013. Hale graduated from the University of Utah and the University of Montana, and has co-written with husband Dean Hale. The catalogue lists 63 titles through The Princess in Black and the Trick-or-Treating Trouble (2026), across series including Princess In Black, Books of Bayern, Real Friends and Kitty-Corn.

Tanith Lee

132 books• 22 series

Tanith Lee was a British writer of science fiction and fantasy, born 19 September 1947, who died on 24 May 2015, leaving more than 90 novels and 300 short stories. Death's Master (1980) made Lee the first woman to take the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel, the August Derleth Award, and Lee also won several World Fantasy Awards plus lifetime achievement honours from the World Fantasy and Bram Stoker awards. Lee wrote the Blake's 7 episodes "Sand" and "Sarcophagus", poems, and the picture book Animal Castle (1972). The catalogue lists 132 books from The Betrothed (1968) to The Earth is Flat (2023), including The Birthgrave (1975) and Don't Bite the Sun (1976). Series include Tales from the Flat Earth, Secret Books of Paradys, Claidi Journals, Blood Opera and Piratica.

Daisy Meadows is the name on the Rainbow Magic children's books, a fantasy line whose subjects include fairies, goblins, Jack Frost and two girls, Kirsty Tate and Rachel Walker. The catalogue opens in 2003 with colour-fairy titles such as Ruby the Red Fairy, Amber the Orange Fairy and Fern the Green Fairy, and runs to Nur the Vlogger Fairy (2023). Sub-series include the Weather, Jewel, Party, Pet Keeper, Dance, Ocean and Showtime Fairies. Magic Animal Friends appears under the same name.

Karen King writes for children and, more recently, for adults. Fifty-eight books are catalogued from Christmas Fun (1989) to The Foster Child (2026), most of them short, at a median of 40 pages. Unicorns, mermaids, fairy tales, humour and Bible stories fill the children's titles, and the Amy Carter Mysteries are the one named series.

Aaron Blabey is an Australian children's author and illustrator, born in 1974, and a former actor. Three series carry his name: Pig the Pug, picture books about a rude and selfish little dog; The Bad Guys, a graphic novel run for junior readers in which a gang of frightening-looking animals tries to fix its reputation, and which reached number one on the New York Times list; and Thelma the Unicorn, about a plain pony passing as a unicorn. Blabey's 46 catalogued books open with Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley (2007) and reach The Boy Who Knew Too Much (2026), with Farmageddon scheduled for 2027. Volumes are short, a median of 32 pages.

Peter Soyer Beagle, born April 20, 1939, is an American novelist and screenwriter, mainly of fantasy fiction. The Last Unicorn (1968) is Beagle's best-known work, and Locus subscribers voted the book the number five All-Time Best Fantasy Novel in 1987. Beagle received a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2011, and SFWA named Beagle a Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master in 2018. The catalogue holds 35 books from A Fine and Private Place (1960) to I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons (2024), with the Innkeeper's World series among them.

Paula Harrison writes children's fiction about princesses, animal rescue, cats and friendship, and the catalogue lists 45 of Harrison's books from 2012 to 2021. The series are Rescue Princesses, Kitty, Secret Rescuers, Princess of Pets, Tiara Friends, Red Moon Rising, Faerie Tribe and Robyn Silver. The Secret Promise (2012) is the first title recorded, with The Wishing Pearl and The Snow Jewel among the early books. Kitty and the Twilight Trouble (2021) is the newest entry.