2009 "First Edition" stated on copyright page; Harper Collins Publishers; smaller hardbound; very good as-new condition; no dust jacket.
 
description -
Odd and the Frost Giants is a World Book Day book by Neil Gaiman. It draws on Norse mythology and also the historical Vikings.
 
Odd is a young Norseman whose father, a woodcutter, drowned during a Viking raid. Soon after he accidentally crushes his leg and his Scottish mother marries a fat widower who neglects him in favor of his own children, and when soon after the winter drags on unnaturally long, Odd leaves his village for the forest. There he meets a fox, an eagle and a bear, the latter with its paw trapped in a tree. Odd aids the bear, and tries to feed him. The bear accepted and was actually hungry. Therefore Odd would always feed him. But as time passed by, he learns that these are not normal animals, but the gods Loki, Odin and Thor. The gods have been transformed and cast out of Asgard by a Frost Giant who tricked Loki into giving him Thor's hammer by taking the form of a woman, granting him rule over Asgard and causing the endless winter, but wherether they were gods or not, Odd couldn't continue to feed them. But he realises that the gods had nowhere to go and couldn't feed themselves.
 
Deciding to help the stranded gods, Odd travels with them to Asgard...