The Witches and Wizards of Oberin

A group of witches and wizards gathers to seek a way to save Earth from the turmoil they foresee, and thousands of years later geologists discover a cave painting in the French Alps that seems to have magical properties.

From Publishers Weekly

Suza Scalora follows up the bestselling The Fairies with The Witches and Wizards of Oberin. Front and back pages set the scene: a team of anthropologists discover a mysterious mountain cave in France. Soon after, the witches and wizards who used the cave as a gathering place abduct the noted Frenchman responsible for unlocking their secret mountain lair. Artful design, stunning photography and laminated pages combine to tell the stories of, among others, Orella, Enchantress of the Dawn, Lalezar, Witch of the Forests, and Maruk, Warrior Wizard. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Gr 6 Up-The creator of The Fairies: Photographic Evidence of the Existence of Another World (HarperCollins, 2001) uses the same highly manipulated photo-collage technique to present a gallery of mages, each of whom is associated with one of the Four Elements. Scalora started with elaborately costumed, formally posed live models, then blurred their outlines into maelstroms of saturated color created from filtered photographs of natural settings; the effect is mannered-almost to the point of abstraction in some cases-but melodramatic. Each magic worker comes with a bit of commentary: Orella, Enchantress of the Dawn, for instance, once stopped an army of giants by transforming herself into the scent of orange blossoms; water witches Euromie and Europa united rival kingdoms by changing a river's course; and Ogma and Malik, Wizards of Illusion, permanently switched day and night for a Caspian village. The descriptive text, printed in a variety of fine scripts and ornamented typefaces on super-glossy paper stock over backgrounds of mottled, intense color, is hard to read, but the perfunctory story line is really secondary to the art; fans of romantic high fantasy and readers who enjoy creating entire imaginary worlds will linger over these mysterious, evocative portraits.John Peters, New York Public LibraryCopyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Suza Scalora 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 commercial photographer. When the opportunity presented itself, Ms. Scalora set out to discover and capture images of the fairy world. In what became a yearlong expedition of epic -- and at times perilous -- proportions, she was finally able to prove something that she has known all along: Fairies are real.

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