This post is a review of the book Eric the Red and Leif the Lucky
The Summary
This book covers the lives of Eric the Red and his son Leif the Lucky. Eric was a hot-tempered Viking who was banished from Iceland for murdering a man. Since he had to leave Eric decided to explore a mysterious land to the west of Iceland.
Upon his arrival, Eric explores this new land and see that this could be a place to live. After several years of exploration, Eric gives the land a name. For marketing purposes, Eric calls the place Greenland and returns to Iceland to try and convince people to come to the new country. With famine and poverty afflicting many people it was not hard to get some people to come.
From here, the book moves to focus on Eric the Red’s son Leif the Lucky. Leif was also an explorer like his father. One day, Leif hears of a strange land further to the west of Greenland. Leif decides to go and find this land for himself.
After several days of travel, Leif and his team find the new land. He arrives at the beginning of the 11th century 500 years before Columbus came to America. The men landed somewhere in what is today Canada and set up temporary living quarters and began exploring the land.
Leif decided to call this land Vinland. Vin means grapes and he named the country this because they discovered grapes in the area. After filling their boat with cargo to sail, Leif returns to Greenland to tell others and his father about Vinland.
The Vikings tried to return to Vinland (America). However, the Indians were waiting for them and fighting between the two groups made it impossible for the Vikings to stay on a permanent basis. Leif never returned to America as he became the leader of Greenland when his father Eric the Red died.
The Good
This text is highly informative and provides students with some basic understanding of the men who came to America so long ago. The black and white illustrations are also interesting as they portray Vikings in a highly traditional manner which is in a position of strength and dominance.
The Bad
The text is tough for a child to read. Therefore, they would probably need help with the reading. There also might be issues with relevance as a child would try to figure out how to connect with a story of Vikings finding America.
The Recommendation
This book would be great for older children. In addition, if it can be integrated into the learning of the students it could help with the relevancy issue. It would be somewhat unusual for a kid to pick this book up and read it for its own value but as part of an assignment/project, this text is excellent.