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- I was surprised to find that 10 different illustrators contributed to this book, since the style appears very consistent to me. The pictures all have bold colors, lots of detail, and a strong sense of action and movement. My only complaint is that in two of the group pictures (which I suspect were done by the same illustrator), the men look too homogeneous, with the same slightly weathered face, same beard, same hair.
- The peel-back illustrations help us appreciate the architecture and details of a Viking house, a longship, the Oseberg (burial) ship, and a stave church. All are beautiful and carefully labeled, and it's fun to peel back the overlay to see both the inside and outside.
- The book is well written. Some of the British syntax may be momentarily confusing to young American readers (e.g., beginning a sentence with "As well as the...") and there are a few undefined words that don't appear in the glossary (intrepid, sextant, standard-bearer). I also noticed that the oft-mentioned Baltic Sea and North Sea aren't labeled on the otherwise excellent Viking map.
- This book taught me a lot that I never learned in school and gave me a much-needed refresher on events I only vaguely remembered (Battle of Hastings anyone?) I enjoyed the chapters on the Viking gods and how Christianity gradually came to replace paganism through conquest, compromise, and convenience. ( )