I really, really wanted to love this. I often like fairytale retellings and the Pied Piper of Hamelin is one of my very favorite stories of any kind, ever.

And this was, really, not a bad book. Yolen and son did a nice job. But it suffered from taking on the impossible task of adults writing about rock n’ roll from a kid’s perspective and trying to convey the cool factor in a meaningful way. I know Adam is a bona fide rock musician, but I just didn’t hear the music or feel its pull—and that was the biggest let-down.

The faerie back story also wasn’t nearly compelling enough to stand up to the tremendously evocative image of a flute-player leading all the town’s children out into the distance. The book actually elides that entire sequence, since it happens when the main character is alone in her room, oblivious. We watch the kids led out into faerie, but we miss them being lured together by the music (on Halloween, no less—a wonderful idea).

Just a bit of a disappointment. But a great concept.