How to train your dragon
2003
- humorous stories
- vikings
- juvenile fiction
- dragons
- humorous fiction
- fiction
- initiation rites
- child and youth fiction
- children's fiction
- vikings, fiction
The story
Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III was an awesome sword-fighter, a dragon-whisperer and the greatest Viking Hero who ever lived. But it wasn't always like that. In fact, in the beginning, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III was the most put upon Viking you'd ever seen. Not loud enough to make himself heard at dinner with his father, Stoick the Vast; not hard enough to beat his chief rival, Snotlout, at Bashyball, the number one school sport and CERTAINLY not stupid enough to go into a cave full of dragons to find a pet... It's time for Hiccup to learn how to be a Hero.
What it’s like
Bright, scrappy and ink-quick, this children's book moves in short bursts of cartoonish caricature, with loose hand-drawn-feeling spreads, chunky comic lettering and a voice that is wry, self-deprecating and full of invented jargon. The mood is cheerful underdog energy: a sunny, windswept Viking village of longhouses, sea spray and rowdy feasts, where humour does most of the work and every chapter ends on a grin. Pacing is brisk and playful, with plenty of mock-heroic asides and small domestic frictions between a gangly boy and his towering, gruff father. Its emotional register is warm and light, with a gentle arc of a misfit slowly finding his footing and his own kind of courage. Violence is cartoonish and slapstick: sword practice, a sport full of bruises and tumbles, and dragon encounters that stay rough-and-tumble rather than frightening, with no gore and no sexual content. It suits a rainy afternoon, a read-aloud at bedtime, or a comfort reread, and it is for young readers and adults who want funny, uncomplicated adventure.
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