Asterix & the Great Crossing

Rating:
Summary: A spellbinding and hilarious story
Review: As a child, I read all of the "classic" Asterix books in Swedish. As an adult living in the U.S., I am reading them again to my children, but this time in English. This is an old classic, and a good one.

Asterix and Obelix live in a village in Gaul that the Romans failed to conquer. The reason for this is that the village druid knows how make a magic potion that endows the villagers with super human strength. In this book the druid runs out of an ingredient (fish) and Asterix and Obelix have to go fish. Unfortunately, fishing is not one of their primary skills. They end up in America, chasing gobble gobbles (turkeys), and befriending native Americans. Very funny, and the story is spell binding. The more modern rework of the same story, Asterix conquers America, is not as good.

In general I find that, children the age 5-13 really enjoy these books, and so do my children. Adults can enjoy these books as well. The Asterix comic books are a great way to teach children ancient history. Naturally, the adult needs to help with the differentiation between fiction and history. From these books, my kids have learned about the Roman Empire, the ancient Greeks, the Vikings, the Goths, the Phoenicians, ancient Gaul, ancient Egypt, and the ancient Mediterranean world in general.

My ten year old started loving these books at the age of eight and he cannot get enough of them. My six year old started liking them at the age of five. Even though many Asterix puns may be a little bit above his head, my younger son still loves these stories.

In my opinion the best Asterix albums are: Asterix and the Normans; Asterix in Corsica; Obelix and company; Asterix the Gladiator; Asterix the Legionary; Asterix and Cleopatra; Asterix and the Goths; Asterix in Belgium; Asterix and the big fight; and Asterix all around Gaul. The last title is a translation from Swedish and might be wrong.

Rating:
Summary: Asterix in America!
Review: First published in French in 1975 as La Grande Traversée, it was first published in English in 1976.

Asterix and Obelix volunteer to go fishing, as Getafix needs fresh fish, which Unhigienix, the fishmonger, as usual, cannot provide.

Stormy weather blows them to a strange destination where they meet up with a strange people who they cannot quite identify (of course we have the benefit of hindsight and know that this is America and these people are Native Americans.) Before the end of the voyage they also get to run into Vikings (A slightly different breed it seems, to those we met in 'Asterix and the Normans').

As usual our friends voyage to interesting places and upside down. In the Asterix albums we have met parodies of figures such as Boadicea, The Beatles, Napoleon, Laurence Olivier and 007. In this one we get to meet up with a spoof of Harold Wilson, British Prime minister when this book was published.

Of course the theme of food also comes up quite a lot. It seems the authors of the Asterix albums had quite an obsession with food!

Rating:
Summary: Asterix in America!
Review: First published in French in 1975 as La Grande Traversée, it was first published in English in 1976.

Asterix and Obelix volunteer to go fishing, as Getafix needs fresh fish, which Unhigienix, the fishmonger, as usual, cannot provide.

Stormy weather blows them to a strange destination where they meet up with a strange people who they cannot quite identify (of course we have the benefit of hindsight and know that this is America and these people are Native Americans.) Before the end of the voyage they also get to run into Vikings (A slightly different breed it seems, to those we met in `Asterix and the Normans').

As usual our friends voyage to interesting places and upside down. In the Asterix albums we have met parodies of figures such as Boadicea, The Beatles, Napoleon, Laurence Olivier and 007. In this one we get to meet up with a spoof of Harold Wilson, British Prime minister when this book was published.

Of course the theme of food also comes up quite a lot. It seems the authors of the Asterix albums had quite an obsession with food!