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8/20/2007 - Book review

I thought I'd try something new for a change: a book review. Last Friday I've been to Germany, and bought a couple of books, so what better excuse is there to start doing this?

One of the books I bought, and read immediately upon returning home, is "Krabat" (English title: "The Satanic Mill"), by Otfried Preusler. It's about a 14-year-old orphan boy, Krabat, living in the East German-Czech border region, a few hundred years ago. One night he get a dream in which he is summoned to come to a water mill. After receiving this summoning for the third time he goes there, and he's hired to learn the miller's trade. The work is hard but he receives mysterious help from his best friend at the mill. Then, after about three months, he's finally let into the secret that he's in a school for black magic. Every Friday evening the boys are instructed in the black arts. At first he loves it, but he then finds that every New Year's Eve one of the boys dies. He wants to know what's going on. In order to prepare for battle against whoever is guilty of his friends' deaths he works very hard, and soon he's much better at wizardry than any of the other boys, who have been at the mill much longer. Then one day, one of his friends lets him in on a few dark secrets, and he discovers that he may well be next in line to die, and that all that can rescue him is the love of a girl.

I've been a big fan of this book when I was younger, but the Dutch translation, is really aimed at kids aged 12. After a certain age I just grew disenchanted with it. I hoped the original version, in German, would be better, and I wasn't disappointed. I've compared the two versions head on, and the Dutch version was just over-simplified. The original version can easily compete with many fantasy books for an adult audience, while not being too difficult for children to read.

If you're a fan of Harry Potter or other stories about wizards, etc., you really should read this book. Not only is it a great story, it also offers an insight into the legends from that part of Germany. Also, it's not as full of needless twists and turns as Harry Potter (I've been reading the first book, but I still have to finish it), and it covers three years in just over 300 pages. The story is suspenseful, and there is a lot of humor in it. However, it does depict magic as something evil, something that not all of my readers will agree with.

Technorati Tags: books, personal
Filed under: books, personal

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8/20/2007 - Krabrat

Posted by SilverWind

Well I am not a Harry Potter fan, but I do love fantasy, and this one sounds intresting, I might just have to keep an eye out for it.

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