#136 of 1001 · December 14, 2020

Sinister indeed is the eponymous stranger of Robert Holden and Drahos Zak’s The Pied Piper of Hamelin. Based on an enigmatic German legend from the old town of Hamelin (also known as Hameln), the story tells of a town plagued by rats and a piper who frees them of the ruinous vermin by luring the animals out of town with his music. When the greedy people refuse to pay for his service, the piper takes revenge by playing his instrument once more—his siren call now ensnaring the town children, who follow him into the distance and are never seen again. Holden relates the tale in verse, adding a certain flavor of the antique. Zak’s art, studded throughout with disconcertingly colorless figures and objects, revels in distortion and unease: half-timbered houses jut upward in a crooked sprawl, the title character leers out at the reader with piercing, heavy-lidded eyes, and a human shadow stretches across the floor and up a wall to become an ominous, towering rat. #piedpiper #hamelin #hameln #rat #rats #book #books #childrensbooks #beautifulbook #beautifulbooks #beautifulbookcover #beautifulbookcovers #picturebook #picturebooks #picturebookillustration #picturebookart #childrensbookillustration #childrensliterature #illustration #kidlit #kidsbooks #bookworm #booklover #booklovers #bibliophile #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstagrammers #instabook #instabooks