Odd and the Frost Giants was written for World Book Day 2008, and is Neil Gaiman's, er, how do I count the books, graphic novels etc? Let's say he's got a good number of books (and awards) to his name, and if you haven't heard of the author of such classics as the Sandman series, Coraline (now a movie), Stardust (also a movie) etc then you must have spent quite some time on some remote pacific island indeed!
This is a very slim volume, so I shall keep this short (ie shorter than the story). Odd is a Viking boy, who walks on a crutch due to a crippled leg; When one year the winter doesn't end, and the tempers in the village's shared Great Hall become increasingly frayed he runs away into the forest, to his dead father's old cottage. There he encounters three Norse Gods (Loki, Thor, and Odin, nevertheless) in animal form, who tell him that they have been tricked out of Asgard by a Snow Giant, and are trapped in this world (Midgard) and in animal form. And so Odd goes on a quest with these Gods to re-gain Asgard...
This is written as a classic Norse Myth, and works well as such. It's neither very long nor very complicated, but stories like these rarely are, and don't need to be. I enjoyed reading it, and can recommend it to all who like Gaiman (or Norse Myths) as a quick snack, so to speak (it's not really a full book). And I hope it did the intended trick, and got some more people (especially children) into books, reading, and Mr Gaiman's oeuvre.
More Neil Gaiman
Illustrated (by Brett Helquist) version, available online
Comic version by Jouni Koponen (you'll have to skip through his blog to see all the pages)
Title: Odd and the Frost Giants
Author: Neil Gaiman
Reviewer: Markus Thierstein
Reviewer URL: http://thierstein.net
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Publisher URL: http://www.bloomsbury.com
Publication Date: 2008
Review Date: 110416
ISBN: 9780747595380
Price: UKP 1
Pages: 97
Format: Small format Paperback
Topic: Myth
Topic: Fantasy
