Odd and the Frost Giants is a charming book and well worth the couple hours it takes to read. His story offers the incredibly important lesson that problems can be solved through awareness of other people, which is a valuable insight not just for young readers, but for everyone. Because here’s the thing with Odd: He’s brave, yes, and also clever, but the traits that resolve the conflict are compassion and empathy.
But, appropriate for a story that is so clearly Odd’s, they are instead there to provide a mythic framework and to raise Odd’s actions and principals to the level of myth and fable. In other stories, Loki’s deceptions, which cause the initial troubles, would also have solved them, or Thor’s bravery and noble heart would find a way to save the day. They are images and personalities for people to recognize: Loki the Trickster, Thor the Noble Warrior, Odin, distant, aloof, and wise. The greatest strength of Odd and the Frost Giants is that it does not stand on the strengths of the gods it contains. Equipped with a crutch, his father’s woodcutter’s axe, and a smile that seems to know far too much, Odd assists the gods in their quest to return to Asgard and remove the Frost Giant from the land. Odd returns to his deceased father’s cabin in the woods, where he encounters the gods Odin, Thor, and Loki recently banished from Asgard by a clever Frost Giant. It is the fairly short, straightforward tale of an unlucky 12-year-old Norse boy named Odd, who has a shattered leg but runs away from home, and his abusive stepfather, after an extended, ongoing winter leaves everyone in the village leaner and a fair bit meaner.
My local library hosts an annual book sale around this time of year, and I was lucky enough to uncover a copy of Odd and the Frost Giants, complete with beautiful illustrations by Brett Helquist (whose art you might know from A Series of Unfortunate Events). I find his lyrical style and deft weaving together of the magical and the mundane enchanting, while the themes of myth, memory, and storytelling that permeate his work resonate with my personal thoughts and priorities. Neil Gaiman is, enduringly, one of my favorite authors.
Genre: Kid’s Fantasy, Norse Gods, Fable, Growing Up
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