How to Train Your Dragon

Book Review: How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse

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How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse
How to Train Your Dragon #4
by Cressida Cowell
read by David Tennant

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy

When Fishlegs is diagnosed with a deadly dragon’s curse, the cure for which can only be found by raiding a particularly crazy band of barbarians, Hiccup defies his father to go on a quest for the cure.

This book brings a refreshing break in the formula, with Hiccup not just failing some kind of training and happening into a situation where he has to save the day. Instead, he deliberately sets out to save the day and even takes a different cohort along—Camicazi, his female counterpart from another tribe, who is a lot of fun in this book too. I wasn’t sure about this series after the first couple of books, but I find I’m quite enjoying it now. The narration is brilliant as always, and I recommend the audiobook for readers young and old alike, and really the book in general.

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Book Review: How to Speak Dragonese

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How to Speak Dragonese
How to Train Your Dragon #3
by Cressida Cowell
read by David Tennant

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy

When another Viking training exercise goes wrong, Hiccup and Fishlegs find themselves at the mercy of Romans and a nanodragon named Ziggerastica.

This was my favorite book in the series so far. The tiny-but-arrogant Ziggerastica is a lot of fun, Hiccup meets the heir to another Viking clan who also provides some enjoyable moments, and the return of a dastardly villain. Though I’m not a huge fan of the formula these books tend to have with Toothless and Fishlegs screwing up and happening upon something they otherwise wouldn’t, I enjoyed the overall journey more this time. I was considering stopping with the series with this book, but I enjoyed it too much to not keep going. Plus, I really do enjoy David Tennant’s narration, and even his interpretation of Toothless is growing on me more and more. For that matter, Toothless himself, though so different from the movie version I knew first, is growing on me with every book.

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Book Review: How to Be a Pirate

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How to Be a Pirate
How to Train Your Dragon #2
by Cressida Cowell
read by David Tennant

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy

Hiccup trains to swordfight and Toothless tries to care about more than fish.

It was easier to evaluate the book for itself this time, since we’re much more removed from the world of the movie (not that the first book was all that similar, but it was enough to make it difficult). The book is overall pretty fun, though I spent a lot of the book wondering why we want a hero who is so incredibly bad at everything he’s expected to be good at. I’m not saying he should be immediately good at everything, but I guess I would just like him to have a win now and then, at least more often than he does and earlier in the book than he does. So far, these books entail Hiccup being bad, defeated, mocked, etc. until the climax, when the situation requires something that he does better than anyone else in the tribe (usually related to brains over brawn). But I just wish there could be a little more to encourage him/us before the end. However, I have to admit that the win he does get made me happy.

David Tennant again does a brilliant job narrating, though his voice for one particular character (while great) may have given me reason to mistrust him more than we might have been meant to. I’ll say it again—if you love the movies and are looking for books like that, I don’t necessarily recommend you read these books. But it’s overall a fun, short read, though I’m hoping to see a change in the formula in future books.

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Book Review: How to Train Your Dragon

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How to Train Your Dragon
Book #1
by Cressida Cowell
read by David Tennant

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy

Though he’s the son of the clan’s chief, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III leaves a lot to be desired as a Viking. When he and the other boys his age are tasked with capturing a young dragon to raise and train, he’s just hoping he doesn’t screw up by not getting any dragon at all.

I’ve actually struggled a lot as I’ve tried to write this review. It’s often difficult to base a book on its own merits if I read a book after watching and enjoying the movie (and in this case, I didn’t even know the book existed when the movie came out), but that has never been more difficult than in this case. The movie is so good and the book is so different, I’ve struggled so much to not compare them and let the book stand on its own. Really, the only similarities are the names of people and places, the inclusion of both Vikings and dragons, Hiccup’s overall character, and the main “antagonist.”

Comparisons aside, I did enjoy the book. I was surprised that dragons in the book are thinking, reasoning creatures, with a language of their own, yet the Vikings capture and tame them like beasts, not bothering to pay any attention to their speech. It’s not something you’d probably want to think too hard about, though I did like the way it plays out in the book. I kept expecting the story to go different ways than it did (which could have been because of the movie, but I also think it’s because I’m used to how books, especially for this age group, tend to go), but it’s a charming story in the end, and Toothless grew on me too.

If you love the movie and are looking for a book like that, I don’t recommend you read this book. If you love David Tennant (or even if you don’t) and want to hear him do a brilliant job narrating a fun kids’ book, definitely consider listening to the audiobook. Overall, I’d say don’t let hearing that it’s not like the movie keep you from reading it, if you’re interested.

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