October 2024
Boy with a Black Rooster: a fairytale for grown-ups
I’ve been excited to read Stefanie vor Schulte’s Boy with a Black Rooster since it came out in Germany in 2021 – so I was absolutely thrilled to see the eponymous rooster on the book’s cover staring up at me in a Scottish bookshop this summer. This adult fairytale, translated into sparse and evocative prose by Alexandra Roesch, tells the story of Martin, a young boy with a heart of gold travelling across a devastated, war-torn land.
I’d thought before reading the book that it might offer an interesting comparison to Naomi Novik’s Uprooted, a detailed fantasy which is similarly set in a pseudo-medieval past, and sees its protagonist, the teenage Agnieszka, fighting to save her people. Reading Boy with a Black Rooster though, my mind kept returning to a tale I think of with much more nostalgia – Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, in which the kind-hearted Gerda encounters all manner of strange people and creatures as she travels north, hoping to save her friend Kai. Vor Schulte really does capture the atmosphere of a fable, with a cast of often nameless characters and a seemingly impossible quest.
Martin is eleven when the book begins, and his only friend is a black rooster. The sole survivor of a family tragedy, he is treated with suspicion by the adults in his village, despite his wise and kind nature – but they are happy enough to have him run the errands they would rather avoid. He is on his way to market one day, when he sees a young girl being snatched by a cloaked horseman, and he realises that the rumours he has always heard of children disappearing are true. From now on, his life has a purpose: to find the missing children and bring them home.
Martin’s journey on his quest is a meandering one – he travels first with a painter, the first kind adult Martin has known, and then alone. The characters he meets with are rarely uncomplicatedly good, but while some of them have sinister motivations, most of them are just trying to survive. As he travels through country torn apart by war, the boy faces danger, mystery and adventure – all of which he sees to the heart of with a clarity which eludes the grown-ups around him.
Like a lot of people, I’ve often found myself struggling to read for pleasure over the past few years – ironic, I am aware, given how much I generally read for work. So it was a real joy to find myself drawn into the immersive and enchanting world of Boy with a Black Rooster, and the novel really reminded me of the satisfaction by a story well told. This is a perfect book to read on a dreary autumnal day, with a hot drink, a warming blanket and plenty of candlelight to keep away the dark.
You will find further information about the book/s and how to borrow them below under Related Links.
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