How to Train Your Dragon, by Cressida Cowell

How to Train Your Dragon, Book 1
by Cressida Cowell
Narrated by David Tennant

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III isn’t what you would call a Viking hero, He’s small and scrawny, and prefers scholarly entertainment rather than ruffian ones. However, he is the son of the tribe leader, so he must be a hero. When, in an initiation-to-tribe trial he must find a baby dragon to train, he ends up with the smallest, toothlessest dragon he could imagine. But he must persevere in order to be accepted into his tribe. Little does the tribe know that danger lurks near.

This was the funniest book I’ve listened to in a long time. And, of course, it’s narrated by David Tennant, which makes it absolutely fantastic. This isn’t just a story for 5th graders, anybody can enjoy it. But don’t expect it to be anything at all like the movie.

How to be a Pirate
by Cressida Cowell
Narrated by David Tennant

In order to learn to be pirates, Hiccup and his friend Fishlegs learn to sail ships and sword fight. But while sailing, they find, floating in the ocean, a coffin labeled “do not open.” Of course they open it, and when the dead rise, unlikely adventure ensues. I’m really enjoying this series so far.

How to Speak Dragonese
by Cressida Cowell
Narrated by David Tennant

In this installment, Hiccup and Fishlegs must learn to board enemy ships. But when they accidentally board a Roman ship, they are kidnapped. They must escape before they are killed in a tournament. Again, fantastically funny with wonderful narration.

How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse
by Cressida Cowell
Narrated by David Tennant

In the fourth installment of How to Train your Dragon, Hiccup find out Fishlegs has been bitten by a tiny poisonous dragon. Hiccup must steal the vegetable-that-must-not-be-named from a dangerous nearby tribe in order to save his friend.

All four were hilarious. I loved Tennant’s narrations. I will certainly pick up the rest of the series soon.

5 stars for all of them

How to Train Your Dragon, Cressida Cowell

How to Train Your Dragon, by Cressida Cowell

Reason for Reading: Trying to keep up with my nephew’s reading. 🙂

Genre: Children’s Fantasy

Review

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock, the famous Dragon-whisperer of lore, had to learn about dragons somehow – and this book chronicles his growing pains. He and a team of similarly-aged kids must capture and train baby dragons in order to be accepted into their Viking clans as adults. They face expulsion if they fail! But Hiccup’s dragon simply isn’t cooperating. First of all, it’s tiny and toothless – which is humiliating for the dragon of the son of the Chief. Second, it has an attitude problem: it refuses to be trained. It looks like Hiccup might be expelled from his Viking clan! But then some sea-dragons emerge from the depths of the ocean – and only Hiccup (well, with help from his dragon and his friends) can save his people.

This was a hilarious book. My nephew, who isn’t a fan of reading, just gobbled this one up. He even sounds excited to read the next one. 🙂 There are funny pictures drawn throughout the story, and the narration itself is laugh-out-loud funny it a childish way. I really enjoyed this book.

I also loved the 2010 movie which was VERY loosely based on the book. The basic setting was the same – a Viking boy named Hiccup must save his clan from destruction at the teeth of hungry dragons – but that’s about all that’s the same. In the movie, dragons are creatures to be hunted. They aren’t kept as pets. Both the book and the movie are very cute and very funny. But in order to enjoy both, you need to be the type of person who is willing to accept that just because the plot is different, doesn’t mean the story is bad. (This is difficult for many people to admit!)

Song of the Vikings, by Nancy Marie Brown

Song of the Vikings: Snorri and the Making of Norse Myths

Written by Nancy Marie Brown

Reason for Reading: This book was provided by the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program in exchange for an honest review.

Review
This engaging biography describes the life of Snorri Sturluson, a powerful 12th-century Icelandic chieftain and the author of the poetic Edda – one of the oldest surviving documents of Norse mythology. As a novice of Viking history, I found this book fascinating and informative – though I suspect that there is much speculation and Brown isn’t always clear when she is speculating and when she has hard evidence for her claims. As such, I think this biography would be enjoyed by people who are interested in learning a bit about the Vikings, but not experts on the subject.

Brown started each chapter out with a legend out of Snorri’s Edda. Often, she told how this legend differs from other known versions and/or how it has affected modern culture. The rest of the book describes Snorri’s life – his youth in the household of “the uncrowned King of Iceland,” his marriage, his rise to political power, and his downfall. She seemed to get most of her hard evidence from a few primary documents and an outwardly biased biography written by Snorri’s nephew, so often she had to fill in the gaps by saying “it’s possible it happened more like this, since his nephew’s story doesn’t really jive with Snorri’s personality.” Of course, that makes me wonder if she had just as much positive bias towards Snorri as his nephew had negative bias. 🙂 Overall, though, I’d say this biography was a success. When there is so little information available, and when the book is intended for a popular crowd rather than an academic one, such speculation is necessary – it makes the book more fun.

Islands of the Blessed, by Nancy Farmer

2012 Book 79: Islands of the Blessed, by Nancy Farmer (5/18/2012)

Reason for Reading: Third, and final, book in the Sea of Trolls trilogy

My Review 3.5/4 stars
When an angry ghost arrives on the shores of Jack’s village, he, Thorgill, and the Bard must go on a dangerous voyage to pacify her spirit before she hurts anyone. Like the first two books of this series, Islands of the Blessed is packed with adventure after adventure, a vast array of creatures from Celtic, Norse, and Christian mythologies, and an engaging historical background. Like the second book, The Land of the Silver Apples, Farmer may have tried a little too hard to pack in extra adventures and creatures…this makes the book fun and entertaining, but it has the disconnected-wandering-adventures feel of Homer’s The Odyssey instead of the tight every-event-has-a-reason feel of Harry Potter. Overall, an excellent book for perhaps the 5th through 8th grades.

Odd and the Frost Giants, by Neil Gaiman

2012 Book 72: Odd and the Frost Giants, Neil Gaiman (5/1/2012)

Reason for Reading: It was there

My Review
Odd, a boy with a bum leg and an odd personality, runs away from home after his father dies and his mother remarries. In the forest, he finds a fox, a bear, and an eagle, whom he befriends. With these new pals, Odd recaptures Asgard from the Frost Giants. A short and sweet fairy-tale like story.

The Land of Silver Apples, by Nancy Farmer

2012 Book 54: The Land of the Silver Apples, by Nancy Farmer (3/27/2012)

Reason for Reading: This is the second book in a trilogy.

My Review 4/5 stars
Jack, the Bard’s apprentice, sets off on a rescue quest when his sister Lucy is kidnapped by Elves. His companions are an unreliable slave/rightful-heir-to-the-throne and a recently freed girl-slave who worships the ground Jack walks on. They meet many magical creatures, re-discover some old friends, and have lots of exciting adventures along the way. I thought this was an excellent sequel to Sea of Trolls. It expanded the mythology of the land while developing the characters already introduced in the first book. I really appreciated the way Farmer handled the three religions that were represented by her characters in this 790AD Britain-based world. She showed the power and beauty of the Pagans as well as the Christians and subtly made the point that they all got their believers where they needed to go—but she did this without forcing the point or lecturing, which is the sign of excellent story-telling! My only quibble about this book is that most of the major plot threads were completed by page 400, leaving 100 pages for the final (and least pressing) plot thread. This is why the book got 4 instead of 5 stars.