Hiccup: How To Train Your Dragon: Book 1 - Softcover

Cowell, Cressida

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0340860685 ISBN 13: 9780340860687

Publisher: Hodder Children's Books, 2003

Synopsis

Read the original books before you see the How to Train Your Dragon film!

THE STORY BEGINS in the first volume of Hiccup's How to Train Your Dragon memoirs...

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.

How to Train Your Dragon is soon to be a DreamWorks film starring Gerrard Butler, America Ferrera and Jonah Hill, out in March 2010 adapted from the best selling How to Train Your Dragon series by Cressida Cowell.

Read the rest of Hiccup's exploits in the How to Train Your Dragon series in How to Be a Pirate, How to Speak Dragonese, How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse, How to Twist a Dragon's Tale, A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons, How to Ride a Dragon's Storm, and How to Break a Dragon's Heart.

Check out the all-new Hiccup website at www.howtotrainyourdragonbooks.com It's the place to go for games, downloads, activities and sneak peeks! Read all about Hiccup and all of your favourite characters, learn to speak Dragonese and train your own dragon to do tricks!

About this title

Review:

The first in the successful series... perfect for tricky boy readers, as the action scenes are first-class. (The Sunday Telegraph)

Mentioned in the 100 Best Children's Books Ever (Novels) (The Daily Telegraph)

If you haven't discovered Hiccup yet, you're missing out on one of the greatest inventions of modern children's literature (Julia Eccleshare, Guardian’s children’s books editor)

Filled with thrilling adventure and action-packed heroes (Charlotte Tarling, Year 6 Country Child)

By turns hilarious and wise, it's never predictable, brilliantly illustrated and always delightful (The Times)

Proper modern classics (Sunday Express)

Hilarious (guardian.co.uk)

A laugh out loud romp of a Viking adventure (Observer)

The start of the most original series for kids in ages. Funny, clever and great for the whole family to share (Dundee Courier)

Her genuinely fierce, intelligent and scary dragons nearly steal the show, but Hiccup and his diminutive sidekick ultimately come out on top, both displaying a proper hero's mix of quick wit, courage and loyalty (Kirkus)

From the Publisher:

* A Viking Molesworth in the form of Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III.
* A very funny adventure story as Hiccup finds a dragon, trains it and, with its help, manages to subdue two enormous monstrous Sea Dragons. In doing so, he also conquers his bullies, gains the respect of his family and schoolmates and shows his tribe that there can sometimes be more than one way of doing something...
* Written as though by Hiccup, with an author's preface and notes throughout the text, interspersed with his own sketches (black and white line illustrations by Cressida Cowell) as Hiccup builds up more helpful reference material for future Viking heroes (the only existing guide to training dragons has three words of text: Shout At It). A similar playfulness and intertextuality as The Stinky Cheese Man.
* Perfect for boys, with lots of humour, dragons, bloodshed, gob and battles.
* Following in the footsteps of Lauren Child with her Clarice books, developing picture book character with real potential to take on a life of his own and bring him to a wider, broader audience, by an author who can work brilliantly on a variety of levels.

Key Reviews:

A classic. - The Viking Herald

How to Train Your Dragon is a must read for every Hero who is having a little trouble being as Heroic as he would like to be. - The Barbarian Librarian

About this edition

• Publisher: Hodder Children's Books
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0340860685
• ISBN 13: 9780340860687
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224