The Brixen Witch (review)

When twelve-year-old Rudi Bauer finds a golden guilder, belonging to the local witch, it brings him so much annoyance that he puts it back on the mountainside where he found it. Then the town of Brixen is overrun with rats, which Rudi and his wise grandmother suspect to be the work of the witch. Nothing succeeds in removing the pests until a mysterious fiddle-playing stranger offers his services for a guilder. When Rudi goes to retrieve the witch's coin, he finds the witch, who explains that the rats have been inflicted on the town by her ambitious, thieving servant (the fiddle-playing stranger). When the town can't pay his fee, he takes Brixen's children, and it's up to Rudi to put things right. This is a vivid and intriguing take on "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," and the smart and honorable (but still believably frightened) Rudi provides young readers with a relatable point of entry into this old legend. Piquant descriptive details (such as the local girls' jumprope rhymes), slightly stylized dialogue, and Nickle's occasional black silhouette-style illustrations evoke a satisfyingly old-fashioned (but unspecified) European-like setting. The pacing is leisurely enough for readers to speculate on the coming events but brisk enough to keep the action moving forward. Hand this to kids who like their fiction steeped in folklore.