Avalon Days

This gentle fantasy about Olivia's visits to her 'New World' of Avalon, accessed through her grandfather's picture of a robin which hangs on her bedroom wall, is a children's story. Yet, it is much more than what is normally implied by that description. The robin comes to life and calls her through the picture frame into Avalon where she is crowned queen over the forest birds and animals. Olivia explores their world and helps save them from various disasters. But she also grows up. In the first Avalon adventure she is a child, but by the final one she is sixteen, a teenager tracing her individual path as the slightly lonely, youngest child in her real-life family. More than that, she is a teenager dealing with the loss of the beloved granddad who was the person who understood her best. Avalon's lesson about the continuation of their relationship, beyond death, is the theme of Olivia's last adventure. Avalon Days has overtones of the writing of the Austrian novelist, poet, and painter Adalbert Stifter (1805-1868). Stifter's concern for conservation and environmental issues is increasingly relevant today.