How to Train Your Dragon: How to Fight a Dragon's Fury - Book 12

 

 (Hiccup and Toothless from the movies decided to fill in for Squirmy)

Bookworm's Ranking - 4.5 Worms

Storyline - The end is near. Doomsday of Yule is approaching and Hiccup is in trouble and Alvin is about to be crowned king. And the dragon Fury is preparing his army for battle. As the Vikings prepare for a king and war, Hiccup will have to not only get to Hero's End without getting killed, prove he is the king without any of the Lost Things, and be crowned king without getting killed by Alvin and his mother, but also figure out how to overcome Fury without destroying the dragons once and for all. And if that wasn't enough, there are a few more surprises waiting in this conclusion to the How to Train Your Dragon series.

Author - Cressida Cowell

Publisher - Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
 
Age Group - 13 and up
 
Content - *May Contain Spoilers* Several death and battle scenes, not really graphic but the deaths are sad. Hiccup is faithful and true to his quest and responsibilities. He tries to defend and help those he can and forgives those who ask for it.

Personal Opinion - Wow, what a great ending. It almost makes me want to go out and look for dragons. I don't think I will ever be the same after reading this series, and isn't that what great books do? They change you? Take you on a journey, or go on your journey with you in life, and change how you see and think of the world? That is what the end of How to Train Your Dragon is for me. Considering anew, just what I love about books, how I see my world and want to react to it. The end is sad yet hopeful, wanting to make the reader cry yet smile at times. Sometimes at the same time. It also leaves the reader with hope. While dragons aren't real, there is a message at the very end, one I wont share for spoilers, that makes you consider things differently and what you are doing and seeing in this world. If I have one issue with the story, it is the repetition of the same message or very close sentences several times throughout the book which make it longer than it needed to be and was a bit overkill. Yet, I almost hope to read the story again, keep it with me over the years, and hope it has changed me for the better.

Buy - Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Publisher,

Other Reviews for this Author - How to Train Your Dragon - Books 1-7
                                                    How to Train Your Dragon - Book 8
                                                    How to Train Your Dragon - Books 9-11

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Chew on a good book today!

How to Train Your Dragon Series

Story Line - How to Train Your Dragon is about a boy named Hiccup (he has a long name so we'll just stick to that) who is a viking and has a dragon named Toothless who has no teeth and never stops complaining. Hiccup is not from the typical viking material like everyone else but always does his best. He, his dragon, and best friends, Fishlegs and Camacazi, go on crazy adventures facing even crazier villains and have to save the day for the viking world.

Age Group - 12 and up.

Positive - The series is cute, tong-in-cheek, story telling. It also caries good messages of father's love no matter how wired or different their child is. The characters grow and learn something about themselves in the stories and have to face difficult odds. The face difficult situations which they master.

Negative - The characters believe in gods called Woden, Thor, and a place called Valhalla and sometimes they pray to them. The gods are also tong-in-cheek like Thor's day Thursday which is probably what Thursday is named after. The gods never make an appearance in the books the characters just believe in them. In book 5, Hiccup meets an old love of his mother's but I wasn't to fond of how in the end it made it sound like she still loved that man more than Hiccup's father. Hiccup's father, Stoik, is also portrayed as dumber than Hiccup (like most of the tribe) so he is always portrayed as doing the wrong thing (or the viking thing in certain circumstances) which might give kids the wrong impression. There is also some crass humor on occasion (Toothless pooping somewhere or Big Booby Bertha, Camacazi's mother). Hiccup's grandfather is a soothsayer (sees the future but really bad at it sometimes).

Finish - I enjoy the series even though it is meant for a younger age group than myself but I find it entertaining and silly and sweet. I could do without the gods they believe but if you want to think of the series as factual at all (which can be a stretch) they would have believed in them in about that time period I think. The books have excellent messages when his father and Hiccup don't see eye to eye but deep down Stoik loves Hiccup and would do anything to protect him. This series is also the inspiration for the film How to Train Your Dragon by Dreamworks.

Links - learn more about the books at http://www.howtotrainyourdragonbooks.com/.

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