Episode 51 - Rootin, Tootin, Flutin and Lootin (Three Little Vikings and The Legend of Viking Thunder)

To wrap up season eight, we've got another episode with a silly name. These books are about Vikings, although, as Matt points out, nobody really called themselves Vikings; it would be like calling yourself the Burglars.

Three Little Vikings by Bethan Woollvin is a cute and funny story structured like a fairytale. Three times is the village practically knocked over. Three times do the little vikings warn their chieftain. Three times does he not listen, and finally, the kids take it into their own hands and use the chieftain as bait to catch a troll. The art style is fantastically modern and classic feeling at the same time, with a Moominish touch to it. The foreshadowing (using a literal shadow) is great. We love a gruesome ending too.

The second book in MG Leonard's Time Keys series, the Legend of Viking Thunder, is packed full of history facts, and music, and research, and Doctor Who-ish timey-wimeyness. It's got complicated family relationships. It's got a fantastic storm at sea aboard a Viking longboat. It's got a nefarious governing body and kids on the run. What more could you possibly want? Dripping with Leonard's trademark charm, this is custom made to slide into your school library. Stories are, after all, the light by which we forge paths into the future. They are what has been, what is, and what will be. They are the world. You've got to have stories to wile away a cold November night in a smoke-filled longhouse. There's only so many chicken legs you can eat in the dark.

The organisation that helped Bethan Woollvin with Three Little Vikings is Inclusive Minds, here

The interview of MG Leonard by Polly Ho-Yen can be heard here

You can learn more about the educational framework that Matt mentioned, the Mantle of the Expert, here

We're going on a bit of a break now, but we'll be back before too long with a Christmas special. And if you can't wait that long, now's a great time to join our patreon here. Matt's just finished narrating our first audiobook and that's where you can get Nina's advent stories too.

Another way to support us is to shop our picks on our bookshop here

What A Wonderful Day is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Shane Ivers of silvermansound.com