Rating: 5/5
Many years ago, so long ago the Vikings roamed the forests and villages, a father died. It wasn’t just any old person’s father, it was Odd’s. The young man had jumped into the foamy waters of the ocean on a sea-raiding trip to save one of the ponies, who got flung overboard. Alas, nobody was saved but the grateful pony.
So Odd’s mother married Fat Albert. The drunkard didn’t spend much of his time with the poor lad in much of a way, for he had his own children to look after, even if he didn’t have clubs and meetings in the background. So Odd strayed.
As a young boy, he had attempted to chop down a tree with his father’s axe. The results? A crutch. And most of all, pain. So this meant that the little, limping boy had not much of a chance in the wild. Survival was, as you can see by reading the first few sentences in this paragraph, not Odd’s thing.
He camped in his father’s old hut, not daring to stroll into the unknown thicket quite yet. Here he found a small lump of wood, which his father had started to carve. But he had never finished it; so Odd tried to finish it for him.
The next day, he was awoken by the sly moan of a fox outside his door. The fox winked at him cheekily and then darted off into the woods. So Odd followed.
But what did he find? What could he do? What did the lump of wood have to do with anything? Read on, find out.
This book was marvellously funny, with few dialogue and not many expectations. But that’s how I like books; who wants a book with no surprises, dead seriousness and chitter-chatter on every page? Not me, I can tell you!