Title The Dragon's Hoard Series --- Author Lari Don Illustrated By Cate James Publisher Frances Lincoln Children's Books - 2016 First Printing Frances Lincoln Children's Books - 2016 Category Mythology Warnings None Main Characters Characters from Norse myth and legend Main Elements Gods, Dragons and more

• "The Dragon's Hoard"
• "The Swan Warrior"
• "The Beserker's Baby"
• "Tusker versus the Earl"
• "The Bear in Chains"
• "The Raven Banner"
• "The Boy in the Bones"
• "Sailing to America"
• "Zombie on the Roof"
• "Hunting Magnus"
• "Odin's Riddles"

Eleven amazing stories from the Viking Sagas, packed with warriors and battles, heroes and heroines, beserkers, monsters and zombies. And lots of magic.

I was looking for more dragon books and this one, well, it had dragon in the title. Turns out there was only one story, that of Fafnir and Sigurd that had dragons in it, but I enjoyed the book nonetheless. I'm not as familiar with the Norse legends as I am with the Greek or Egyptian mythologies so a learnt a little, even though the author admits to modifying the stories to suit his needs. But as he correctly points out, these stories come from an oral tradition, what finally got written down had probably changed significantly over the years of retelling, so he's just continuing the tradition. At the end of the book he even makes note of the major changes he made and also lists the sources for each of his stories.

I didn't like the artwork though, it wasn't terrible but the way James draws noses really bothered me. And this was a kind of book where high quality illustrations (rather than something that looks like it was drawn by a child) would have been appropriate. The tales themselves are not actually children stories but grand epics and battles, of course toned down for the intended audience, and I felt deserved better illustrations.

And if you're wondering about the inclusion of zombies, apparently Norse ghosts are actually more the walking dead, hence the use of the term zombie, even if it wasn't a term they would have known.

But this book has inspired me to learn more about the Norse mythology, and to read the full story of Sigurd and his encounters with the dragon Fafnir.