I have just found a personal favorite!!! Totally AMA-zing!!!! Maddy is an incredibly real character, I can't believe this isn't a biography -- only if this new and intriguing kind of magic introduced by Ms. Joanne Harris exists of course! I definitely felt like I'd known Maddy my whole life by the time I was done reading this. Runemarks is going to be more interesting to kids who have read and are interested in Norse mythology. I personally was extremely glad that I am very familiar with it. I did find it quite obvious who some characters (namely "One-Eye" and "Lucky" as they claim to be called) were going to be. So in that case part of the surprise was gone. I feel that although the main character, Maddy, is female, four other important supporting characters -"One-Eye", "Lucky", Mimar, or "The Whisperer", and Sugar, the goblin -are male, so I feel that both boys and girls will like it. I particularly enjoyed how the author fit in so many characters from Norse mythology, but I wish she had taken more time developing most of them.