One of my favourite books in middle school, reread it here in my exile at my mum’s place and while it clearly is for children (well..), it’s as deliciously dark as I remember.
In the early 18th century, Krabat, a 14-year old Wendish beggar boy (check out what that people is, you’re in for a cool history/ethnology lesson) finds himself called to a lonely mill in the middle of the woods. He starts an exhausting apprenticeship, where the mysterious miller doesn’t just teach him and his 11 colleagues how to grind grain, but also the Dark Arts. Every Friday they turn into ravens and learn new hexes, every new moon a strange man with a glowing red feather in his hat makes them grind unknown things at night, and every New Year, one of the apprentices dies and is replaced by a new boy without much fanfare.
The book is based on an old folktale and it really transports that feeling well, it’s all very straight-forward, yet the world building lacks nothing (it DOES help if you know the landscape this takes place in a little, but it’s not a must), nor do the relationships between the characters. There’s honest friendship and familiar love during hard and challenging times, it’s explored what happens to idealists and innocents under the tyranny of one man and while the one female character isn’t developed all too much, her love and power are one of the most important things in the story.
Not all questions about how the magic really works are answered, nor who the strange man on the new moon really is (it’s implied that he’s the devil of course, but it could be death personified just as well), but they don’t need to be for this story to work.
It’s a wonderful, quick read, the fact that I loved it this much says a lot about preteen me, but I can wholeheartedly recommend it to adults too, especially during cold and dark December nights. It’s not a happy book, but after hardship and true, painful losses, smartness, goodness and love prevail.