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Cover of Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman Odd and the Frost GiantsNeil Gaiman

Odd and the Frost Giants

by Neil Gaiman

Ages 8–11 Reading age 9 Short chapters Set in the past epicgentle

A lame Viking boy leaves his village in an endless winter and meets a bear, a fox and an eagle who turn out to be three gods in trouble.

A story about children and magical creatures, epic and gentle in tone. We would put it with children of 8–11, and at a reading age of about 9 for reading alone.

Worth knowing before you buy

None of this makes it a bad book — often the opposite. It is here so you can decide whether it is right for your child now or in a year or two.

Our take on this book

Odd, a Norse boy with a lame leg and a stubborn streak, runs away from his unhappy home and meets three animals — a fox, an eagle and a bear — who are in fact the gods Loki, Odin and Thor, tricked out of Asgard by the Frost Giants. It falls to quiet, clever Odd to outwit the giant and win them back. Neil Gaiman tells this short novel with the clean, spare beauty of a real Norse legend, funny and wise and just a little melancholy, and it wears its mythology lightly enough for a younger reader. There is mild peril but nothing truly frightening; Odd wins by kindness and cunning rather than force. For an eight- to eleven-year-old it is a lovely, short, satisfying read — a proper myth-flavoured adventure with a gentle, thoughtful hero — and a perfect first taste of Gaiman and of Norse mythology, often leaving readers hungry for more of both.

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