Troll Mill

Langrish, Katherine

3.87

795 ratings by Goodreads

ISBN 10: 0060583088 ISBN 13: 9780060583088

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2006

Fifteen-year-old Peer Ulfsson is haunted by his past. Forced to live with his evil uncles under the eerie shadows of Troll Fell, he nearly fell prey to their plan to sell children to the trolls. Now Peer lives with his friend Hilde's family, but can he ever truly belong? And will Hilde ever share his deeper feelings?

One rainy night, Peer watches in shock as his neighbor Kersten pushes her baby daughter into his arms and then disappears into the sea. Rumor says that Kersten is a seal woman who has returned to her ocean home, and the millpond witch, Granny Green-teeth, seems intent on taking the "seal baby." Peer also discovers that the mill, abandoned when his uncles joined the troll kingdom, is running again -- all on its own?

With angry trolls, mysterious seal people, a mischievous house spirit, and three unusual babies in the mix, Peer and Hilde have their hands full and more!Katherine Langrish returns to the magical world of her acclaimed debut, troll fell, in this second story set in an extraordinary land by the sea filled with Viking legends and lore.

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About the Author:

Katherine Langrish is the author of Troll Fell, a New York Public Library "One Hundred Titles for Reading and Sharing" book; Troll Mill, a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age; and Troll Blood. She grew up in the Yorkshire Dales, the hill country of northern England. She graduated with an honors degree in English from the University of London and has been writing stories for most of her life. Katherine currently lives in England with her husband and two daughters.

From Booklist:

*Starred Review* Gr. 5-8. Strands of selkie legend frame Langrish's second book^B about likable orphan Peer and his corner of early Norse civilization, where the realities of sea, farm, and hearth come wrapped in shadowy tendrils of folklore. When a local woman disappears into the sea, Hilde's family (with whom Peer now lives) adopts her half-selkie baby, an act that incenses their volatile nonhuman neighbors. The upheaval intensifies the unrest plaguing Peer, now 15, who aches with unrequited emotions for his foster-sister. Finding new purpose in a plan to refurbish his treacherous uncles' abandoned mill, Peer haplessly stirs up further trouble, bringing his valiant, memorable surrogate family into yet another confrontation with the troll kingdom--and forcing Peer to face his savage uncles anew. Readers will want to start with Troll Fell (2004) to fully appreciate Langrish's elaboration on her characters' internal and external circumstances, though even newcomers will respond to the taut plotting and potent language; the rotating mill wheel "rumble[s] like some monstrous stomach," a ghastly beast slithers to the ground with a "squashy flump." The icing on the cake is an irresistible cover: lush, fanciful, and creepy in equal measure, it captures the best qualities of Langrish's evocative world. Jennifer Mattson
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