Unicorns in Uniforms: Dragon Inferno
Tracy Curran, illustrated by Steve Wood
UCLAN Publishing

Dragon Inferno is the first instalment in the Unicorns in Uniforms series, the uniforms team being Blaze, the firefighter, Locke, a Police Sergeant, paramedic Dash, Sunny, an air and mountain rescuer and Aquarius, responsible for sea rescue. This story is told from the viewpoint of Blaze.

There’s action aplenty, which starts when two playful young dragon friends, Flare and Glimmer accidentally set fire to Witchy Wood. Abandoning her breathing exercises, Blaze immediately leaps into operation mode. With Sunny already engaged, the firefighter boards Quench, her Flamequencher emergency vehicle and races off towards the scene of the fire.
Enter young witch, Jinx pushing a strange wheeled contraption – seemingly her conjuring has gone a bit wrong. It contains Flare with a broken wing; but almost at once, Jinx’s magic mishaps get far worse and disaster ensues with the inferno heading towards the treehouse of Hex, her grandmother, which is full of powerful magical potions.

Fortunately it’s soon after that Blaze utters the words, “Nothing is impossible for Unicorns in Uniforms’.

Will they, or will they not prove to be right: can Blaze and Quench get everyone to safety before the whole of Witchy Wood is destroyed.

At just over a hundred pages, with Steve Wood’s exuberant illustrations, this is ideal for those in KS1 just starting to read chapter books. I’m sure readers will be eager to read stories told from the viewpoints of the other uniformed unicorns too.

After the story comes some information about real live fire-fighters and their equipment, and a quiz. In addition, Tracy Curran’s narrative offers opportunities for discussion about ways in which to control one’s temper and to stay calm in an emergency.