Gwinna Publisher: Philomel Books, 1990
Reviews of Gwinna Publishers Weekly
In Gwinna Berger ... has written and illustrated a magnificent fairy tale of wonder, beauty and power. ... No brief recap of Gwinna's plot can do justice to all its subtleties or to its profound imagery. Berger tells her long tale in simple, direct prose that illuminates its allegorical aspects with impressive clarity while keeping the action and adventure flowing smoothly. This accomplishment is especially remarkable as Gwinna is Berger's longest text by far... In the realm of children's fantasies, Gwinna compares with George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin and C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. With the publication of this story, Berger takes her place with the best talents in the field, past and present. ... The Horn Book Magazine
...[Gwinna] can't be skipped any more than I could skip a word of Barbara Helen Berger's tale of the enchanted girl with wings who was brought into the world to learn the secret of the wind's song. Berger's haunting illustrations make you want more. St. Louis Post-Dispatch Magazine
... I can imagine no higher praise for Barbara Helen Berger's “Gwinna”... than that of her acclaimed fellow author, Jane Yolen: “This lovely, lyrical book reinvents a classic 19th-century form -- the mystical fairy tale novel. If George MacDonald were alive today, he would be a Barbara Berger” What is even more astonishing is that Berger is a phenomenally talented
artist, creating illustrations for her books that are as lyrical as her prose.
... Chinaberry Book Service
... Gwinna is a must for every child who felt nurtured by the serenity of Grandfather Twilight. As the very first fans of that book approach or are already moving into pre-adolescence, they will find Gwinna an inspiring, compassionate character who experiences, allegorically, the process of personal growth which we all must undergo. ... This is a book to give a child or friend who is realizing that life is full of peaks and valleys, of joys and sorrows, that there will always be a need to trust one's Self. It is truly a beautiful gem of a book, on several different levels, to be cherished for an entire lifetime. School Library Journal
[Gwinna is] a book for libraries in which the demand for fantasy is
insatiable. -- Barbara Hutcheson, Greater Victoria Public Library, B.C.
Canada
Harpers know: the most musically inept of us can conjure sighs of longing from strangers, can draw children to our instruments as a candle draws moths. And most of us have found that possession of a harp changes us in deep and intangible ways. The harp is a creature full of compelling mystery; this we know. Barbara Helen Berger certainly knows. She set out to write a children's story about a young girl and a harp; in the three years she spent completing the tale and painting its illustrations, it grew into an allegory of human spirituality, and Barbara herself became a harper. More than a year ago, rumors were percolating through the Pacific Northwest harp community that Barbara was working on a book about a little girl who is born with wings, who learns to fly and to play the harp. Even told in secondhand fragments, the story had the evocative quality of a favorite dream. The finished book, “Gwinna”, has that quality as well; it resonates with dream- images. ... Harp Beat of the Bay
... At the end of our last lesson, I asked [Bianca, age 7, Bay Area Folk Harp Society's youngest harp player] what kind of music she wanted to play on the harp, and she said, “music from the Mountains.” When I asked her what this was, she told me about the book, Gwinna, and her father brought it by for me to read. It's a beautiful story about a girl who sees a faraway mountain, hears the harplike music in the wind, and is filled with a longing. Her longing leads her to the great mountain which is the source of all music, where she's given the great gift of a harp to play. ...
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