The more she tries to ignore it or bottle it up, the bigger it gets…until it finally breaks out in a storm that sends her fleeing all company to huddle alone in a gloomy forest. Harking back to Not Quite Narwhal (2017) in both cast and tone, Sima offers a friendship tale in which Kelp’s close and aptly named pal Nimbus acquires a dark little cloud that rains when she feels down.

The message is an appealing one that could speak to many family situations relating to multiple identities, but the central dilemma is resolved so quickly and easily that there is little room for emotional engagement.Ī slim, feel-good story, as light and airy as the rainbows that grace its pages.Įmotional storm clouds come between two unicorn friends. As seen in Sima’s soft, digital illustrations, Kelp is adorable, and she evokes both undersea and aboveground environments artfully. Following a brief internal tussle over where he truly belongs, Kelp recognizes that he doesn’t have to be just one thing or another and happily unites his friends at the shoreline. Upon returning to his watery home, Kelp learns that the narwhals knew all along that he was actually a unicorn. Kelp’s blissful new life of learning to do special unicorn things amid sparkles and rainbows is punctuated by sadness over the narwhal friends he left behind. The “land narwhals” explain to him that they-and he-are unicorns.

Swept close to shore one day, he spies for the first time an adult unicorn and, struck by the resemblance to himself, totters onto solid ground. Being true to yourself means embracing differences and striding (or paddling) fearlessly into the world.Įmerging from a giant clam, baby unicorn Kelp lives among narwhals, believing he’s just not as good as everyone else at swimming, appreciating a squid dinner, or breathing underwater (he sports a glass diving helmet-with a gasket-encircled hole for his horn).

Not quite narwhal by jessie sima