["The Satanic Mill"] is set in 17th-century Germany during the period of the Thirty Years War. Krabat, a 14-year-old Wendish beggar, is enticed by a voice in a dream to a mysterious mill, which is really a school for black magic…. Exactly what the mill is grinding is not clear to the very end….

Preussler's descriptions of the mysterious rituals and events of the occult are rich. His knowledge of the machinery of a water mill is impressive. He is very much at home both in the natural and supernatural. There are many pages and whole chapters in "The Satanic Mill" which will delight the young and even the old. But somehow the talented author does not manage to integrate his realism and mysticism. The two elements deny and neutralize each other. In a school of magic where things are accomplished with the power of incantations and pupils...