NY Times mag piece on Barker's new imaginary world for children:

Walking into what Barker calls the inside of his head — that is, his private art studio — is like tripping into a punk-rock version of Oz. Brightly colored oil paintings, some of them as wide as 13 feet, cover the walls of six large rooms from floor to ceiling. There are 386 of these paintings, and while some portray ethereal landscapes and bashful-looking animals, most are a little freaky. In one, a creature sprouts seven tiny heads out of the tips of its antlers; in another, a beast with cat's eyes holds out an assortment of skulls on stems, as if they were a bouquet of flowers. Seeing Barker's artwork, you think: This is how Charles Addams might have painted if he'd been a serious Deadhead. ''I'm just a conduit for this stuff,'' Barker says. ''It's like pulling something out of my subconscious — something that isn't a rabbit.''

The paintings that cram Barker's walls each illustrate a corner of an elaborate children's fantasy universe he calls the Abarat — and that universe is poised to become big business. This month, the Joanna Cotler imprint at HarperCollins will publish ''Abarat,'' the first in a series of four sprawling kids' novels Barker is writing based on the world he has poured into his artwork. The book spins out a story that has sometimes tinny, sometimes lovely echoes of children's classics that range from ''The Wizard of Oz'' to ''The Chronicles of Narnia.'' It's about a teenage girl with an ungainly name (Candy Quackenbush) who lives in a place that is almost as unfortunate-sounding: Chickentown, Minn. Candy is bored and lonely and frightened of her abusive father. One day, in a field near her house, she falls almost by accident into the Abarat — a teeming archipelago of 25 islands where each represents a different time of day. Once there, Candy finds a destiny of sorts: she must save the Abarat, and ultimately the human race, from the designs of a posse of bizarrely twisted villains.

''Abarat'' has its problems — it's not going to make anyone forget Tolkien or C.S. Lewis. Candy's adventures can seem more like a wacky fun-house ride than a subtle, well-planned journey. And some of his wordplay may make even 12-year-olds groan. (One fishlike character has a ''piscatorial pout.'') But Barker's book keeps you effortlessly turning the pages, and the metaphor that underpins ''Abarat'' is always pushed front and center: childhood can be a stew of nightmares, and the only way to get out of it intact is by marshaling all the pluck, curiosity and good company you can.

page 1 | 2