Title Gods and Thunder: A Graphic Novel of Old Norse Myths Series --- Author Carl Bowen, Michael Dahl, Louise Simonson Illustrator Eduardo García, Tod Smith, Rex Lokus Publisher Capstone Young Readers - 2017 First Printing Capstone Young Readers - 2017 Category Mythology Warnings --- Main Characters Loki, Thor and other Norse characters Main Elements Gods, giants

Girl meets boy. It's a story as old as time. But what happens when the old story meets a brand new set of circumstances? Gods and thunder. Brothers and betrayal. Death and rebirth. Original Viking tales of Asgard, Thor, Loki, Odin, and Baldur come to life in a full-color, action-packed graphic novel format that's perfect for young readers who crave adventure. Prepare yourself for sibling rivalry, ancient prophecies, and epic battles--and enter the weird, wild world of Norse mythology like you've never seen it before.

I decided to peruse the children's section of the library to see if there were any quick reads to go along with my year's reading theme of gods/angels/demons and found this one. I was eager to see the Norse tales illustrated (and not looking like something out of a Marvel movie) and quite enjoyed it.

Unrelated but inspired by the book, I was thinking this graphic novel got Thor's hair colour right, red. But in fact, it seems Thor really did start out with blonde hair and Marvel got it right. It was Loki who probably had red hair, so Neil Gaiman got that right in his Sandman comics but everyone else goes with black (and he always seems to dress in green, which mind you, suits the black hair). Not really important, the myths get retold and mixed up all the time so usually there is no correct answers for most questions anyway.

So we get four tales in this one, though "Thor and the Giants" is really a collection of several smaller tales, some of which I didn't come across before. Of course being a graphic novel the images take up quite a bit of space so some tales were cut a short, but the gist was there. The other three are the one with Utgarda-Loki and the challenges presented to Thor and Loki, Baldur's death, and Ragnarok. I was happy to see the cross-dressing Thor was included in "Thor and the Giants" where he dresses as Freya to get Mjolnir back (that giant seriously needs to get his eyes checked).

Overall, I liked the artwork, some very dramatic scenes in the Ragnarok section with Tyr getting bitten in half by Garm and Odin eaten by Fenrir, but then that's how the story goes, don't think we should sugar coat things for kids (though its one thing to read it, another to see it). The artists did chain up Loki with regular metal shackles rather than his son's intestines which I think was a good move...there is a fine line between sticking to the details of the myth and giving little kids nightmares!