Member Reviews
Christina B, Educator
A very funny book that I know the children at school will love. Lots of great adventures and hilarious characters.
John L, Reviewer
A book with so much exuberance in the telling – but then it needed that quality to help gloss over the fact it does so little, so often. Leif is a young wolf cub Viking, or else a young Viking wolf cub, who knows, and is the most accident-prone, unlucky critter around. So when the mission to rescue a fallen star – a shard from Mjolnir, no less – is demanded, nobody would want him to be the leader of the group going after it. Needing to prove himself, he still takes himself off into the snowy wastes, along with a duck (don't ask), a stinky muskox (don't ask) and a puffin (I said…).
The problem is the troupe all insufferably find each and every one of the others insufferable, and have to let us know that on every page. We have to be reminded of Leif's misfortunes at all turns, too, because, you know, that's what we have instead of character. So what might have been a jolly, slightly slapstick comedy turns into just too much bickering, certainly for my tastes. All this is delivered in part-illustrated fashion, but here you have to 'read' the visuals too as they include the speech bubbles the text doesn't work without.
Oh, and there's a chapter designed as a board game, which is certainly different.
And let's face it, even if this is very much inferior to the Loki books of Louie Stowell, they don't have all the scat humour, and the more books like this for the reluctant reader the greater chance of one of them landing. This is certainly for those too young to think "hold on, if these really are such thick characters, how can they be intelligent enough to know the others are thick?!", but just because this is adult-proof it's not to be dismissed outright. It's not brilliant at all, and it's a three-and-a-half starrer, but it's going to work much better for some.
