The Sea of Trolls Book

Nancy Farmer’s new novel is a big, energetic, magical and breathtaking volume--a sweeping Viking adventure set in AD 793 that is rich in excitement and adventure, and which manages also to be quite funny at the same time. Farmer is a three-time Newbery Honor author in her native United States and her pedigree as a fine author is very apparent here. There’s marauding, sea-faring, kidnapping, beserking, dragon-bashing, magic and battle throughout. Jack is a Saxon boy, apprenticed to the local bard and on the brink of harnessing his inherent magical abilities. Disaster strikes when he and his little sister Lucy are hauled away from their home in the North of England by a villainous-looking crew of Viking Berserkers led by Olaf One-Brow. Jack begins by hating his captors, for their cruelty and brutal way of living life. He is oppressed in every way, and thoroughly despised by a Viking girl in the raiding party called Thorgil who seems hell-bent on nothing more than dying a glorious death in war and ascending to Valhalla. Jack and Lucy are hauled in front of King Ivar the Boneless and Queen Frith--a half troll with a fearsome temper--who is angered beyond measure when one of Jack’s spells causes her hair to fall out. Leaving his sister behind as a potential sacrifice, Jack must undertake a dangerous quest to the land of the Trolls in Jotunheim to seek Mimir’s Well and extract from it the elixir that could reverse his calamitous spell. There is substantial excitement and drama along the way. It’s difficult not to be entertained by everything within these 450 pages plus. The novel encompasses such great themes, speeding the reader through fascinating Scandinavian mythology, and at the end it’s impossible to let go. Reassuring, there’s a sequel in the making. (Age 10 and over) --John McLayRead More