Note – If you have seen the movie, don’t read this book. Maybe that was my problem, but usually I like a book better than the movie. This book was not even close to the quality of the movie however. The characters were uninteresting, including Toothless. While I loved him in the movie, I disliked him in the book finding the dragon incredibly annoying. Plus, Toothless has a sudden change of heart near the end that was just unbelievable, because the dragon in the rest of the book would not have shown the love or gratefulness that was displayed in the end.

Hiccup, the protagonist, is not what a Chief’s son should be. He and the other boys his age are being trained and their first step is to get a dragon. They have to sneak into the baby dragon lair and capture one. Hiccup, of course, ends up with the smallest, most boring dragon possible. While his cousin has a fierce dragon, Hiccup’s dragon doesn’t even have teeth – meet Toothless. Toothless doesn’t do anything Hiccup asks him to, and all the other boys have managed to get their dragons under control. This is especially apparent at their final test and ceremony, when Hiccup and Toothless cause mass chaos. This results in all the boys getting banished.

Only the arrival of two giant dragons halts their removal from the camp. The tribe has to talk to the dragons to find out their intentions, and only Hiccup knows the outlawed language. He offers to sacrifice himself in trade for not being banished. The boy finds out that the dragons are not there for war but that the dragons do plan on eating the whole village anyways. The team of boys make a plan to war the two dragons against one another and hopefully kill each other before the tribe is eaten.

Does it work? Does Hiccup live? What about the village? Does Toothless ever behave?

I don’t recommend bothering to find out. Again, maybe the adorable movie ruined it for me, but I was completely unimpressed. Even the humor seemed false, contrived, and just repetitive attempts at jokes.

The story was short and easy to read though, plus fairly clean. If you really need a new library book to read, go for it. Just remember it is a completely different story than the movie, and with that in mind, maybe you will have a better opinion of the book than I did.

Kate

How to Train Your Dragon Book 1 by Cressida Cowell
(c) 2004, Little, Brown and Co
Publisher Reading Level: Young Adult
ISBN: 0-316-73737-2
214 Pages