Loki: A Bad God's Guide to Being Good

LoveReading4Kids Says

Winner of the Children's Book Award 2023 | Shortlisted for the British Book Awards 2023

Shot-through with wit, myth, friendship and fart jokes, and told through a blend of narrative text, doodles and comic strips, Louie Stowell’s Loki: A Bad God's Guide to Being Good is a riot from start to finish. Oh, how the mighty are fallen!

After playing one joke too many, trickster god Loki has been banished to earth by Odin, and this book presents Loki’s diary account of his 31-day exile as a mere mortal. The interlocking of words and pictures is hilariously effective from the off, such as when the author juxtaposes Loki’s “before and after” form.

Before he had “awesome big hair”, “cool facial hair”, “broad shoulders” and “arm muscles”. As an eleven-year-old boy his hair is “only slightly awesome”, and his body is decidedly scrawny. Despite believing “I am too awesome to be treated like this!”, Loki reluctantly admits that “Odin IS the boss of me”, which leaves him no choice.

If he wants to return to his god-form, he must do good deeds, go to school, and show some kind of progress.

Alongside the fast-paced execution of an excellent concept, this heady hotpot of humour has been superbly designed. I loved the droll correction boxes flagging-up Loki’s fibs. As he explains, “this is a magical diary. If I lie in here, the diary will correct it”. And there are comic corrections aplenty as Loki strives to increase his “virtue scores” to end his banishment.

The first in a series, Loki: A Bad God's Guide to Being Good is sure to generate tonnes of “have you read this?” enthusiasm in the playground.

Reviewed by Joanne Owen
Joanne Owen is a writer, reviewer and workshop presenter whose lifelong love of books began when she was growing up in Pembrokeshire, Wales.
More reviews by Joanne Owen

About Loki: A Bad God's Guide to Being Good

Wry, witty and very funny diary-style story packed with doodles and comic strips about the frustration trickster god Loki feels at having to live trapped in the body of a weedy eleven-year-old boy.

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