The Boy with the Black Rooster

Martin is only eleven, but he has seen pain and sorrow that would last a lifetime. Left without parental love and care, he grows up in an empty hut on the edge of the village, and he has only a black rooster. The villagers avoid the boy, considering his rooster an embodiment of unclean power, yet they are not averse to using him as a laborer. "All his life, Martin has heard stories about a knight in a black cloak who kidnaps children. Always one boy and one girl. And no one has ever seen those children again." One day, this black knight kidnaps a girl right before his eyes, and Martin decides to find the missing children and put an end to this evil. He leaves the village together with a wandering artist and, embarking on an odyssey, learns not only the depths of human souls but also his own abilities. The debut novel of contemporary German writer Stefanie vor Schulte, "The Boy with the Black Rooster," is an attractively dark parable about growing up, loneliness, and humanity, set against a backdrop reminiscent of an apocalyptic Middle Ages.