By Rick Riordan
Rick Riordan does Norse mythology: a homeless Boston teenager dies on his birthday, wakes up in the Viking warriors' afterlife, and has to find a lost sword before Ragnarok begins.
Magnus Chase has been living on the streets of Boston for two years, ever since his mother was killed and their home destroyed. On his sixteenth birthday he learns he's the son of a Norse god, and minutes later he dies fighting a fire giant on a bridge, and wakes up in Hotel Valhalla, the afterlife for fallen warriors. Now an einherji, an undead soldier training for the end of the world, Magnus has to break the rules, slip back out into the Nine Worlds, and recover the Sword of Summer before the monstrous wolf Fenrir breaks free and Ragnarok, the Norse doomsday, begins early. He's helped by a Valkyrie named Sam, a deaf elf, and a fashion-obsessed dwarf, and he does the whole thing with Riordan's trademark wisecracks.
This is the top of the shelf for the child whose Norse obsession has turned into a hunger for a big, fast, funny novel. It's Riordan at full power in Asgard: the same first-person wit that carries Percy Jackson, aimed at Thor, Loki, Odin and Ragnarok, so a child gets the myths they love wired into a modern adventure. The cast is one of Riordan's warmest and most diverse, a Muslim Valkyrie, a deaf elf, a dandy dwarf, and it opens a full trilogy with crossovers into his other worlds, so a hooked reader is set for a long while. It's the longest and most demanding book here, a real stretch for a strong reader of nine to thirteen.