Rating: 
(25 reviews)
Author: Victoria Kann
Publisher: HarperCollins
Product Description
Being Pinkalicious is pinkatastic, especially when she’s accompanied by her pet unicorn, Goldilicious. Goldie is a roller-skating, kite-flying, high-jumping unicorn who will protect Pinkalicious from the evil wizardry of her little brother, Peter. Together, Pinkalicious and Goldilicious can conquer anything!
This enchanting follow-up to the New York Times bestselling Pinkalicious and Purplicious brings to life a new and magical character that is every bit as captivating as her pinkeriffic owner. With heaps of creativity and a touch of sparkle, Goldilicious glows—from horn to toe.
5 Comments
While Pinkalicious and Purplicious were fun read aloud books for girls with a nice lesson, this one falls flat. I was expecting a story about a unique golden-haired girl, friend to the previous book characters, but found it to be instead about a pretend unicorn. ((Yawn)) The story is predictable, lacks cuteness and originality and ends abruptly. The author, editors and publishers must have been sleeping to let this one fall through the cracks and was banking on the popularity of the first two books to make the sale. Sadly, I fell for it.
I am a sucker for picture books that try to capture the spontaneous imaginings of young children, and this is the formula that Goldilicious follows. The plot is free-flowing and subtly told through mostly dialogue. Pink’s mother sends her to play outdoors after her imaginary friend, a Unicorn named Goldilicious, is deemed (in the adult’s estimation) as too messy for the living room. Think of it as in the vein of the uber-classic “Where the Wild Things Are,” with a massive injection of all things girly. Yet even Pink’s brother Peter gets drawn into the imaginary play, resulting in a positive portrayal of sibling collaboration, each co-opting the others’ tastes for the sake of fun and companionship. There are many charming details and things to notice in the backgrounds – for example, Peter can be spotted in the background, spying on Pink for three page spreads before deciding that he wants to join in.
My daughter adores this book equally as well as the first two. I have to say that I prefer this one. I personally still find the character design of Pink herself to be cloying as hell, but the strengths of this book go far to overcome that. The kids’ dialogue is much more believable than in the original “Pinkalicious”; even when Pink asks if Goldicious has “become one with the universe;” I would buy that as one of those precocious phrases that kids sometimes pick up on. Although I am not much of a fan of the first book, and I recoil somewhat from the whole cliched girlishness of the series, in the end I always end up thinking “well, at least it’s not Hannah freakin’ Montana.”
My daughter loved Pinkalicous but honestly, each book became less interesting. Purplicious was still a good story about keeping true to what you like and fighting peer pressure. This is the first book in the series only written by Victoria Kann and I don’t know if that made a difference but the story is very simple. Its about her imaginary unicorn Goldilicious. There doesn’t seem to be a moral lesson like the earlier books and the story is not as clever. If your child loves the series, its a fair addition but definitely the weakest of the 3.
The author is trying to capture the creativity expressed in the first “licious” book “Pinkalicious” by writing both “Purplicious” and now “Goldilicious” but in my opinion has missed the mark. Purplicious was terrible in that the book was about the main character being belittled mercilessly by the girls in school for liking the color PINK (how “babyish” it is) until she decides she can like other colors, like purple (cruel way to come about I thought). In this edition “Goldilicious” refers to the main characters imaginary unicorn friend but in the introduction of her we are quickly told she’s really just called “Goldie” for short, lame, the premise of the title was Goldilicious, why not stick with the name?
I thought this was better done than Purplicious but it did not have the same magic for me as the first book. It was just so-so and as a hardbound children’s book collector this is not one that made our library. I did appreciate that the author touched on the subject of imaginary friends as it is rarely done in children’s books and applaud her for having done it solo without her sister as partner like for the other 2 in the “series”.
The illustrations were top-notch, bright and cheerful with a glittered paperjacket to capture the eye of little princess’s everywhere. The storyline just didn’t grab me.
My 5 year old daughter really enjoyed Pinkalicious. While this one doesn’t quite measure up to the original, it is not as mature in content as the second, which we found to be a huge disappointment. Purplicious immediately went right back to the library. This one we are likely to read again.