Thelma the Unicorn

About the Thelma the Unicorn series

Thelma is an ordinary pony who longs to be a unicorn, and one lucky day a carrot ties itself to her head and a truckload of glitter-pink paint spills on her at just the right moment. Suddenly she's the unicorn of everyone's dreams -- adored, famous, chased by cameras -- and it takes the whole book for Thelma to realize that the attention she thought she wanted is exhausting, and that the friends who liked her before the glitter are the ones who actually matter.

Aaron Blabey plays the fame-and-identity story for warmth as much as laughs: Thelma's storybook transformation is a gentle, kid-legible metaphor for chasing an image instead of being yourself, wrapped in the same bright, big-eyed cartoon style and propulsive rhyme he uses across his picture books. A sequel eight years later, The Return of Thelma the Unicorn, brings back the same cast for a second round of fame-and-friendship complications. The original book was adapted into a Jon M. Chu-produced, Netflix animated musical film released in 2024.