THE DARK WOOD OF THE GOLDEN BIRDS

When two artists like this artist with words and Leonard Weisgard join forces here should be occasion for exultation. But this time we feel that they have gone too far into a rarified atmosphere remote from child interest. There's even a subtle aura of fear engendered — and never clarified in the story of the forest from which comes the music of golden birds, into which people who venture never return or else return speaking an unknown language. An old man shelters two wayfaring children, and keeps for them the magic of the forest and the song. But when they want to enter the wood he breaks the charm by saying he cannot hear the song and the birds are unreal. He becomes ill; the boy goes into the forest; and when ultimately he returns, the magic is there again but the mystery remains illusive. Somehow it doesn't come off.