Two Terrible Vikings by Francesca Simon and Steve May

Two Terrible Vikings by Francesca Simon and Steve May
Buy Two Terrible Vikings by Francesca Simon and Steve May at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Emerging Readers
Reviewer: Ruth Ng
Summary: Lively and packed full of naughty behaviour, with great illustrations to enjoy as you read!
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 160	Date: February 2021
Publisher: Faber & Faber
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 9780571349494
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In a small Viking village there live two twins, Hack and Whack, who are eager to be the very worst Vikings ever! Nothing can stop their mad marauding, as they cause havoc at a birthday party, chaos whilst tracking a troll, and undertake a grand journey to raid Bad Island with their friends! They get up to all kinds of mischief and naughty behaviour, along with their wolf-cub Bitey-Bitey, and their crazy cast of friends.

Francesca Simon is famous for a whole host of larger-than-life characters in children's stories, including, of course, Horrid Henry. So it's no surprise that the twins in this story are adept at getting into trouble at every turn! Children often seem to love reading stories about naughty children. They enjoy watching the extreme, rebellious behaviour, whilst also enjoying their own superiority at knowing that what these children are doing is far beyond the realms of acceptable behaviour! Having vikings as your main characters allows for even more naughtiness that is, in some way, condoned since vikings are famous for their marauding and raiding!

The story is full of fun illustrations throughout. They really help create the characters, and feel full of action! My personal favourite as far as characters go was Bitey-bitey! I liked looking out for him in the different pictures to see what he was doing each time, with my particular favourite being one where he was quite small in the background, cocking his leg! Whilst there aren't pictures on every page, there are enough that they help the chapters to move along, and it's fun to look forward to what you'll see happening next! Steve May, the illustrator, has worked on Dennis the Menace previously, and the artwork does have that anarchic feeling to it.

The only slight criticism I had was that each chapter is quite long. They are each fairly self-contained stories, and it can feel like quite a lot to read in one go, so I was surprised the different stories weren't broken up more. It's still larger-print, easy to read text, and of course broken up with the brilliant illustrations, but I felt that the chapters just edge on being a bit too long. Still, for those children who are still not quite ready for much larger chapter books, there's a good sense of achievement in being able to finish a whole book! And parents can always share the reading load with their children, and take it in turns to read a page. Silly and naughty, with a great twist in the final story, this is an enjoyable story for emerging readers.

Further reading suggestions: You might also enjoy reading this excellent story by the same author The Parent Swap Shop by Francesca Simon and Pete Williamson.

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