Oct 3, 2008

What Happened in Hamelin

by Gloria Skurzynski

What Happened in Hamelin tells the tale of a young man who is baker's assistant in a medieval German town. A stranger comes to Hamelin and befriends the boy, enthralling him with dreams of a greater life than his narrow existence in the bakery. This man thinks up an ingenious plan to rid the town of rats, with a little help from the baker's boy. But when the job is finally done, the people refuse to pay the stranger for his services. So he plots revenge on all their children. Those are just the bare bones of this story, which has plenty of interesting details and unexpected plot twists. I liked seeing how the old fable was woven into the narrative, demonstrating how real events could easily become a mysterious fantasy when all the facts aren't known.

Rating: 3/5 ........ 177 pages, 1979

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous11/07/2008

    You didn't find it alarming? I thought it was so creepy! (But good!)

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  2. Actually, it's been four years since I read the book. I remembered being fascinated by how it gave plausible facts to a fable, but couldn't recall my emotional response to the book.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous4/10/2009

    This was a creepy book, but yes, really good.

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