num_pages: 250
description: Krabat, a fourteen-year-old Wendish beggar boy, is summoned in a dream to a mysterious mill. When he awakens, an irresistible force makes him seek out a mill near the village of Schwarzkollm 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 mill's journeymen are virtual prisoners. During the week they do the normal work of the mill, but on Friday nights, the master initiates them into the strange rituals of the Art of Arts. The very first Friday, the master turns Krabat into a raven, a trick the boy quickly learns to do himself.Krabat completes his apprenticeship, becomes a journeyman and the master's star pupil in necromancy. But the power his new skills endow him with does not compensate for his loss of freedom. And the more he learns of the mill's dark secrets, the more determined he becomes to escape from the master's bondage.The Satanic Mill is set against the colorful background of seventeenth-century Germany. The story of Krabat's captive apprenticeship and ultimate victory over the master is an unusual, tension-packed thriller that readers of all ages will find difficult to put down until the last page is turned.Called a masterpiece by reviewers in Germany, The Satanic Mill was awarded the 1972 German Children's Book Prize.
language: English
title: The Satanic Mill
titlecomplete: The Satanic Mill
characters: Müllermeister, Kantorka, Krabat, Tonda
genres: Young Adult, German Literature, Classics, Childrens, School, Magic, Fiction, Horror, Read For School, Fantasy
ratings_count: 19708
places: Koselbruch, Lausitz, Germany
awards: awardedAt: 94723200000
name: Zilveren Griffel, awardedAt: 63100800000
name: Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis
category: Jugendbuch, awardedAt: 63100800000
name: Polnischer Jugendliteraturpreis, awardedAt: 94723200000
name: Premio Europeo di Letteratura Giovanile "Pier Paolo Vergerio", awardedAt: 220953600000
name: Jugendbuchpreis 1977 des polnischen Verlegerverbandes
publisher: The MacMillan Company