Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Odin's Ravens.

16060302Armstrong, K.L and Marr, M.A. Odin's Ravens.
May 13th 2014 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers 
E ARC from Netgalley.com

This sequel to Loki's Wolves has  Matt Thorsen back and looking for the hammer of Thor. Ray and Rayna are not in the picture, but Fen and Laurie are having lots of adventures. First, they have to travel to the underworld and retrieve Baldwin, and the hardest part is getting out of there! They have to fight all manner of evil creatures, like draugrs, which are sort of zombie Viking warriors, get some help from the Valkyries, and run into Matt's grandfather again-- and he's still willing to sacrifice Matt. Admittedly, I lost the notes that I had to take on this one, so I'm a little vague on plot , but this was a good read packed with a lot of adventure as well as tons of details from Norse mythology.
Strengths:The characters in this are interesting and have an unusual dynamic. Tons of Norse mythology worked into the plot. I'm still not sure if Ragnarok happening is a good or bad thing, and that gray area is something that I enjoy (think the Revenge of the Witch series, which I think will be the hot book starting next fall, since the movie is coming out soon.)
Weaknesses: Like the Rick Riordan books, there is so much going on that if I don't take notes, I have trouble following the plot. If I lose the notes... well, you can see how good my grasp was! Students seem to do better with fantasy books than I do, but struggling readers would find this a challenge.



Finished inventory. That's the good news. The bad news is that there are about 30 books that just walked away. Have I mentioned that my library has ELEVEN doors, eight going into classrooms? That doesn't help. I'm hoping that some will come back in locker clean out, but really, people, who steals book FOUR in a series? I'm missing Black Heart by Justin Somper. Grrr. Sure as shooting, if I replace it, the book will show up in the gym, and I'll have two.

Fifteen books still out, but I'm hoping to get that number down. The biggest loss this year has been students going to other schools. I've had about 50 lost and paid for.

**Sobbing gently into cardigan sleeve while working on Baker and Taylor order.***




1 comment:

  1. I still want to know who managed to steal ALL the Cinda Williams Chima books. ALL OF THEM. I mean, those things are practically Harry Potter - how the heck did they get them out? One at a time in a backpack? Were they just super sneaky? Did they lower them out the window and sneak back at night to retrieve them?

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