Fourteen-year-old Zack Gilman is not what you'd call a happy kid. The mild-mannered son of the world's biggest Minnesota Vikings fan, he is doomed to spend his days being dragged to football games, where he's forced to sing fight songs and make bratwurst runs for his dad's boisterous posse. The problem is, Zack hates all organized sports. The other problem is, he's six-foot-three, weighs 250 pounds, and his dad sees him as the next Vikings football MVP.
It starts out as an ordinary day at the Minnesota Metrodome. When Zack is nominated vice president in charge of bratwurst by his dad's football cronies, he grudgingly sets out on a food run, only to find himself caught in a freak snowstorm. Zack loses his sense of direction and literally stumbles upon a strange key-like object. The moment he picks it up, Zack find himself in another world, another time, and on an adventure he never bargained for.
While attending a Vikings football game with his father, Zack finds himself transported to ninth-century Scandinavia amongst Vikings who see him as the fulfillment of a prophecy that will help them solve the riddle of Yggdrasil's chest.Gr 4-8-Zack Gilman is a six-foot-three, otherwise unremarkable high school freshman whose mother died when he was five. His father is a fanatical Minnesota Vikings football fan, the one dimension revealed about him. While on a mission to find the concession stand to buy bratwursts during a game, the 14-year-old trips over a strange object in the snow-a rusty disk with three stems. Next thing Zack knows, he is in the midst of a bloody Viking battle during the ninth century. He discovers that he is the Lost Boy, and the only person who can unlock Yggdrasil's Chest and release its contents-the rusty object turns out to be the key. Everyone in Zack's tribe has a counterpart in his real life. His father, best friend, archenemy, annoying sister, and the girl he has a crush on are present, with similar names and identical personalities. While Zack fights along with the Vikings against the Bears and longs to return to his own time, he also struggles with problems that parallel the ones he has at home. The plot gets complicated and hard to follow. The humor and content put it out of the range of elementary-grade children, yet it is not sophisticated enough for teens.-Elizabeth Fernandez, Brunswick Middle School, Greenwich, CT Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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