The Runes of Elfland
Grade 7 Up-If runes are the keys to Faery, this book is an Open Sesame. For each rune, Berk tells a brief story (borrowing from traditional myth and tale), often ambiguous and fragmentary, and then evokes the sign's significance and associations. The stories suggest mystical meanings and the sections on significance also tell stories, and urge participation ("seek a place of stone under the waning moon"). The 24 runes govern human activities: journeys, exchange, joy, loss, fate, memory, etc. Berk explores etymological links, origins, and natural correspondences. Life lessons, folk wisdom, and psychotherapy all play a role in this user's guide, and if the approach is a trifle portentous and highly poetic, readers are expecting no less. The pictures are classic Froud: a fistful of Arthur Rackham, a measure of Pre-Raphaelites, scattered seasoning from other 19th-century illustrators. (One painting is a clear Millais-Rossetti homage.) The palette is subdued, with a few touches of ruby or lapis adding glow to the greenish cast of the faery world. Each rune has a full-page heraldic illustration and a couple of elvish creatures forming the letter's shape with their bodies. It's all great fun and Froud fans will be ecstatic.Patricia D. Lothrop, St. George's School, Newport, RICopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.