All the Norse Knowledge You Need! The Unofficial Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard Companion by Peter Aperlo

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Apparently the Norsemen of old had a lot of time to make up stories about the Viking gods, heroes, giants, and other mythological creatures during those l-o-o-n-g winter nights, because their well-populated pantheon makes the ancient Greeks and Roman tales look  pretty paltry.

With the release of Rick Riordan's already best-selling first novel in his new series, Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, Book 1: The Sword of Summer (Disney Hyperion, 2015), adventure-loving young adult readers are going to need to bone up on their Norse gods and goddesses, elves, dwarves, giants, and monster lore, and Peter Aperlo's just published The Unofficial Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard Companion: The Norse Heroes, Monsters and Myths Behind the Hit Series (Ulysses Press, 2015) is to perfect guide to have handy as they follow Magnus Chase, former homeless Boston orphan, who discovers that he is the demigod son of the god Frey with the mission of averting the end of the world and becomes a genuine hero of Asgard all in one day. All the many players who populate Magnus' story, plus many more, are identified in this small, handy volume.

Peter Aperlo's Unoffical Guide offers a fascinating and illustrated rundown of Norse history and social mores, a generous sampling of some of the more famous Norse myths, and an extensive Who's Who biographical dictionary of the Scandinavian pantheon of deities, mortals, heroes, monsters, and otherwise villainous characters that is sure to be indispensable in reading Riordan's first book and his proposed series. Aperlo offers a bonus pronunciation guide to Old Norse vowels and some links to further reading into the world of Viking archaeology. All this in an inexpensive paperback or even cheaper e-book that young readers can keep at hand, especially since the sequel, Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, Book 2: The Hammer of Thor is forthcoming in 2016. And with Riordan's Disney connection through the publisher of this series, there are surely prospects for a movie or so, with the Boston setting offering plenty of colorful location shots for the action.

Who knew that a ride on one of Boston's famous Swan Boats could secretly be a Viking cruise? How wicked is that?

"You Gotta Love Aphrodite!" Percy Jackson's Greek Gods by Rick Riordan

"I hope I'm getting extra credit for this. A publisher in New York asked me to write down what I know about the Greek gods, and I was like, Can we do this anonymously? Because I don't need the Olympians mad at me again.

If you don't know me, my name is Percy Jackson. I'm a modern demi-god."

And who better to give us up-close-and-personal thumbnail bios of those classical mythology characters than Rick Riordan's demi-god hero, Percy Jackson? Having spent more literary time than he really wanted dodging lightning bolts and other insults to his person with those guys, he's surely got the inside track to their personalities. The hero of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series proceeds to tell all about those pesky Greek gods and goddesses who haunt middle-school mythology units, usually safely contained in (mostly undisturbed) dusty library tomes, with the sarcastic point of view that only a young teen demi-god can give us.

Percy's chapter headings give us an idea of what's in store within: "The Beginning and Stuff; The Golden Age of Cannibalism; Zeus? Forget Him; Hermes Goes to Juvie; Demeter Turns into Grainzilla; Persephone Marries Her Stalker; Ares, The Manly Man's Manly Man; Hestia Chooses Bachelor #0; and "Hades Does Home Improvements," to name some of the deities ruling over their own sections.

Percy/Rick provides a disclaimer that "there are bazillions of different versions of the myths, so don't get all 'Well, I heard it a different way.'" But with some allowance for Percy's tongue-in-cheek delivery, Rick Riordan's just published Percy Jackson's Greek Gods (Hyperion Books, 2014) provides a highly readable resource for middle readers' school assignments or for Percy's many fans, who have been with him since The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1) first came off the presses or who have just discovered this best-selling series, to visit with their favorite hemi-semi-demi-god once again.

Percy Jackson offers an afterword and a thorough index, but appends his own ironical message for his dear readers:

"Please. There are about 100,000 Greek Gods out there. I am a little too ADHD to include everyone of them.

Please don't give the publisher any ideas. This writing gig is hard!