Author Anthea Bell Translation 2014 English Edition - Krabat and the Sorcerer's Mill

“One of my favorite books.” —Neil Gaiman The classic fairytale of a young boy’s quest for freedom from a powerful sorcerer, darkly atmospheric and filled with magic and adventure New Year’s has passed. Twelfth Night is almost here. Krabat, a fourteen-year-old beggar boy dressed up as one of the Three Kings, is traveling from village to village singing carols. One night he has a strange dream in which he is summoned by a faraway voice to go to a mysterious mill—and when he wakes he is irresistibly drawn there. At the mill he finds eleven other boys, all of them, like him, the apprentices of its Master, a powerful sorcerer, as Krabat soon discovers. During the week the boys work ceaselessly grinding grain, but on Friday nights the Master initiates them into the mysteries of the ancient Art of Arts. One day, however, the sound of church bells and of a passing girl singing an Easter hymn penetrates the boys’ prison: At last a plan is set in motion that will win them their freedom and put an end to the Master’s dark designs. Krabat & the Sorcerer’s Mill was one of Cornelia Funke’s most beloved books as a child, and it is easy to see why. It is a wondrous story of magic, black and white; of courage and cunning; and of high adventure. It is after New Year's and just before Twelfth Night, and Krabat, a fourteen-year-old Wendish beggar boy, is dressed as one of the Three Kings, traveling from village to village singing "Hosanna to the Son of David!" Then one night in a dream, a faraway voice summons him to a mysterious mill. When he awakens, a strange force lures him to the mill where he becomes apprenticed to the Master. He soon discovers that the mill is actually a school for black magic and that he and the other eleven boys, the mill's journeymen, are the Master's prisoners. During the week they grind the grain, but on Friday nights the Master initiates them into the ancient rituals of the Art of Arts. Set against the enchanted, wooded countryside of seventeenth-century Saxony, Krabat is the wondrous story of a boy's captive apprenticeship and his friendship and adventures with the other child prisoners, as well as a profound exploration of the nature of good and evil, freedom and power. ... In seventeenth-century Germany, a boy desperately wants to escape from a school for Black Magic where he is held captive by demonic forces.