Beowulf

Added this for fun. Told by Michael Morpurgo. Illustrated by Michael Foreman. Both are simply stellar yes supernova brilliant when it comes to their work for children. Morpurgo, not being a scholar of old English quotes his sources as Heaney, Crossley-Holland, and my first reading at about age 9 by Rosemary Sutcliff. He can't go wrong with these three. I was a late teenager when I discovered Foreman and have loved his distinctive style ever since.

If you can find it, this would make a great present for any boy who thinks he likes a bit of gore and blood both in text and illustration. Not that any girl “shouldn't” like it just that it's short on any romance but it does have a heroic combatant saving the world from monsters.