Lars-Henrik Olsen

Lars-Henrik Olsen combines zoological expertise with storytelling that brings natural history, folklore, and mythology to younger readers. Erik Menneskesøn begins his best-known fantasy sequence by carrying an ordinary thirteen-year-old boy into Asgard, where encounters with Thor, Idun, giants, and other figures turn scattered Norse myths into a connected adventure. Høst issued it in 1986; Erik Hjorth-Nielsen supplied the illustrations. Later volumes continued Erik’s development and his journeys through the mythic world. Olsen’s professional experience helps explain the attentive treatment of landscapes and creatures across his writing. He worked as an editor and specialist consultant for the World Wide Fund for Nature and founded Panda Club, its Danish children’s and youth organization. Alongside the Erik books, he has written nonfiction about animals and nature as well as historical fiction. Erik Menneskesøn belongs to his larger effort to make inherited stories and knowledge of the living world approachable without separating entertainment from careful observation.