After Hamelin picks up the story where the Browning poem and other tellings of The Pied Piper of Hamelin leave off. Told with a sense of adventure and humor, the author uses inventive wordplay and uninhibited imagination to spin a narrative tale through strange lands inhabited by characters both good and evil.
Penelope is now 101 years old, but as a child she was struck deaf on her eleventh birthday, the day the Pied Piper stole the town’s children. Spared that fate, she accepts the quest to find the evil piper and bring the stolen children back. She tracks them through dangerous terrain, into the belly of a mountain, to a lost city. Before their adventure is over, Penelope and her companions use their wits and talents to rescue the missing children—standing against human, animal, and supernatural forces in order to triumph. "
“Imaginative ... full of wonderful characters.” —School Library Journal
“This quest story harbors echoes of both Oz and Wonderland, with touches of their humor and a good helping of their darkness ... excellent fantasy.”—VOYA
“... brilliant new novel ... Along the way, a wonderful story unfolds, a story propelled in good part by a joy in language, and a belief in its powers. There are songs an rhymes, poems, skipping chants and incantations. The reader is with the story, enchanted, one might say, all the way to its resolution ...”—Vancouver Sun
“A fun, funky and fascinating read.”—St. Catharines Standard
“Blending aspects of classical myth and literary fantasy, the tale builds to a fine resolution and casts a hypnotic spell.”—Booklist
“Featuring a wild and unpredictable dreamscape ... First-time YA novelist Richardson provides an effective framework for his narrative, juxtaposing the poetic musing of 101-year-old Penelope against the childhood adventure she meticulously recalls ... Penelope’s wise, sometimes bitter voice remains fresh and provocative.”—Publishers Weekly
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