Book Review: How to Train Your Dragon by Cowell Cressida

Cowell, Cressida. How to Train Your Dragon. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2003.

"Hiccup will be leading you, although he is, admittedly, completely useless, because Hiccup is the son of the CHIEF, and that's the way things go with us Vikings. Where do you think you are, the REPUBLIC OF ROME? Anyway, that is the least of your problems today. You are here to prove yourself as a Viking Hero. And it is an ancient tradition of the Hooligan Tribe that you should--" Gobber paused dramatically--

"FIRST CATCH YOUR DRAGON!"

Ohhhhhhh suffering scallops, thought Hiccup.

Hiccup Haddock the III is the son of the Viking tribe's chief, Stoick the Vast, but he is not your typical Viking hero. To the dismay of his father, instructor, and the tribe in general, Hiccup dislikes being mean or cruel to anyone, including the pet dragons that each boy is supposed to be training. He decides to take a different approach to training, which includes speaking Dragonese, a language known only to dragons. Unfortunately, it doesn't work as well as he had hoped, since his dragon, Toothless, is lazy and rude. But when it comes to life or death, can Toothless be trusted?

This was a cute little book. Predictable, sure, but so much fun. I kept hoping that “heroic” type things would happen to poor Hiccup, but no, they didn’t really. He made everything happen. And little Toothless…what a great character. I’m glad it’s hard to train a dragon without yelling at it, and it’s not actually easier. I was worried that’s where the whole thing was going. My little brother is a reluctant reader, but he eats up these books. How can he not, with character names such as "Dogsbreath the Duhbrain?"