cover image Tales for Heart and Mind: The Guided Experiences, a Storybook for Grownups

Tales for Heart and Mind: The Guided Experiences, a Storybook for Grownups

. Latitude Press, $18 (129pp) ISBN 978-1-878977-15-1

Subtitled A Storybook for Grownups , this large, liberally illustrated but terse volume has the look of a children's book. Indeed, the simply phrased text, designed to be read aloud (and also available as a book on tape) is accessible to children, who may be the best audience for some of these fablelike tales. Silo, the pseudonym of bestselling Argentinian author Mario Luis Rodriguez, spins dreamy fantasies about letting go of negative emotions, forgiving oneself for past misdeeds, getting out of behavioral ruts and accepting life's challenges. The narrator of ``The Child'' steps into a life-size painting and encounters a 10-year-old who turns out to be himself (or herself) at that age. The protagonist of ``My Greatest Mistake,'' put on trial for a never-defined crime, is sentenced to death by starvation in the desert but gets a life-transforming reprieve. Silo's Everyman or Everywoman dances with ex-lovers, visits a nudist camp, rides a UFO and consults a doctor whose shingle warns: ``You who enter here, abandon all hope.'' Some of these 21 tales verge on psychobabble or are cluttered with symbols; others are charming, healing mind-trips that speak meaningfully to our daily predicaments. By means of pauses marked in the text, readers are invited to visualize the action and insert themselves into each story. Berry's black-and-white illustrations convey childlike wonder and a sense of mystery. (Mar.)