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Animalia  (New edition, Summer 1999)

ISBN 1-58246-012-4

Publisher: Tricycle Press, 1999,
(first published by Celestial Arts 1982)

Original Editor: Orly Kelly

Original Art Director: Abigail Johnston

New edition of Animalia.

Animalia will soon be out again, in a new form this summer. The new edition is due from Tricycle Press (a division of Tenspeed Press) in July. I have seen an advance copy and am happy with our re-design. We kept the essence of the book, with every piece of full-color art and every one of the thirteen stories told in the original calligraphy. We changed only the placement of titles, adding page numbers and a table of contents. I also updated the author’s note at the end. Tricyle has done a wonderful job. It was a joy for me to work with them closely on all the design choices. You too will be pleased, I think, with the rich color in this new printing. It is a nicely produced paperbound book of 32 pages. The retail price is only $7.95. The new ISBN # is 1-58246-012-4. And it can be ordered by calling Tricycle Press at 1-800-841-BOOK. Or ask your bookseller to order it for you.

-- BHB June, 1999

Flap copy from first edition:

[front flap]

Breath, life and soul were known as `anima' in Latin. Our word `animal' comes from this. Legends tell of wise and holy people who have lived gently with Animalia, kingdom of the animals. They are saints and sages who belong to human spirit everywhere. These tales are bits of their old lore retold.

Every now and again, a book comes along that is a privilege to publish. Animalia is such a book. Each small tale, complete on a spread of two pages, opens up an exquisite, jeweled world of small creatures, flowers, vines, magic and wonder that recalls the most finely detailed of medieval manuscripts.

Animalia is much more than a beautiful book for children— it is a book for every booklover, for every lover of animals, for every lover of fine art. It is a book to treasure.

[back flap]

Barbara Berger, illustrator of Jane Yolen's Brothers of the Wind, lives and works on Bainbridge Island, off Seattle, Washington. A graduate, cum laude, of the University of Washington in Seattle, with a BFA in Fine Arts, she attended Yale University Summer School of Music and Art, and Temple University Tyler School of Art in Rome. She has exhibited her work extensively in the Northwest, served as an art instructor throughout the area and designed the ecclesiastical vestments for St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle. This is the first book she has both written and illustrated.

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Northwest People magazine

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Sunday, December 5, 1982

photo by Gilbert Arias

Reviews of Animalia

Seattle Weekly, Dec. 8-14, 1982

Section: Children's Books For Christmas

Animalia, by Barbara Berger (Celestial Arts). Bainbridge Island artist Barbara Berger has compiled and retold 13 tales about people (call them sages, saints, or mystics) who had a special affinity for animals. In themselves, these tales are distinctively warm and gentle, but the illustrations transport this book to the plane of spiritually-informed art, serene, generous, expansive, and achingly beautiful, a modern descendant of the illuminated manuscript. The original art is on view at the Penryn Gallery through Dec. 11 [1982]

Publisher's Weekly, December 24, 1982

Animalia

... Berger's creation is impossible to overpraise as an inducement to contemplation on the wonders of nature we are seldom conscious of. Marvelous paintings, vibrant with color, illustrate the author's collection of stories based on annals of people remembered for living harmoniously with nature in its countless forms. "Breath, life, and soul were known as `anima' in Latin," the book's introduction reminds us, and the word applies to animals and the life in humans as well as in plants of every kind. The illuminated paintings encompass tales about St. Francis whose love for all creatures led him to bestow blessings on a beetle, worm, a snail and a spider as well as on the higher animals. St. Francis and other real people are celebrated here and there are also legends and myths about gentle men, women and children recorded in the folklore of China, India and other countries. The book is a rare spiritual experience. (All ages)

Daily Hampshire Gazette, Northampton, Mass., December 1, 1982

"Some literary treasures to light up a child's Christmas"

by Jane Yolen

... Barbara Berger, a young Washington state artist, has produced one of the most glowing books of this or any season. "Animalia"(Celestial Arts) is a modern illuminated manuscript containing 13 small tales gleaned from the wisdom of different cultures and religions around the world: saints and sages, gurus and princes dance across the pages of this special and beautiful book. Hand calligraphed, each story is set within a two-page full-color picture. The stories themselves, tiny parables, are gems rivaled by the illuminations in which they are set. Ostensibly this is a book for children, but it is really a book for all ages. ...

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