Author:
Scalora, Suza
We are the original magicians, the alchemists.
We are the witches and wizards who
collaborate with the elements,
the forces of nature,
to conjure,
to dazzle,
to bewitch.
From Publishers Weekly:
SuzaScalora follows up the bestselling TheFairies with The Witches and Wizards of Oberin. Front and back pagesset the scene: a team of anthropologists discover a mysterious mountain cave inFrance. Soon after, the witches and wizards who used the cave as a gatheringplace abduct the noted Frenchman responsible for unlocking their secret mountainlair. Artful design, stunning photography and laminated pages combine to tellthe stories of, among others, Orella, Enchantress of the Dawn, Lalezar, Witch ofthe Forests, and Maruk, Warrior Wizard.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal:
Gr 6 Up-The creator of TheFairies: Photographic Evidence of the Existence of Another World (HarperCollins,2001) uses the same highly manipulated photo-collage technique to present agallery of mages, each of whom is associated with one of the Four Elements.Scalora started with elaborately costumed, formally posed live models, thenblurred their outlines into maelstroms of saturated color created from filteredphotographs of natural settings; the effect is mannered-almost to the point ofabstraction in some cases-but melodramatic. Each magic worker comes with a bitof commentary: Orella, Enchantress of the Dawn, for instance, once stopped anarmy of giants by transforming herself into the scent of orange blossoms; waterwitches Euromie and Europa united rival kingdoms by changing a river's course;and Ogma and Malik, Wizards of Illusion, permanently switched day and night fora Caspian village. The descriptive text, printed in a variety of fine scriptsand ornamented typefaces on super-glossy paper stock over backgrounds ofmottled, intense color, is hard to read, but the perfunctory story line isreally secondary to the art; fans of romantic high fantasy and readers who enjoycreating entire imaginary worlds will linger over these mysterious, evocativeportraits.
John Peters, New York Public Library
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
About the Author:
SuzaScalora has been fascinated by fairy lore for as long as she can remember.She began her research while working in New York City as a commercialphotographer. When the opportunity presented itself, Ms. Scalora set out todiscover and capture images of the fairy world. In what became a yearlongexpedition of epic -- and at times perilous -- proportions, she was finally ableto prove something that she has known all along: Fairies are real.
