Facing sneering peers, plus a cave full of vicious young dragons and two mountainous, malign adult ones, brings an ordinary Viking lad around to becoming a “Hero the Hard Way” in this farcical import. Dispatched to capture and train some breed of dragon as a rite of passage into the Hairy Hooligan Tribe, unprepossessing Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III returns not with a mighty Gronkle, or an aptly named Monstrous Nightmare, but a shrimpy creature laughingly dubbed “Toothless”—who also turns out to be about as trainable as a cat, with an attitude to match. But Hiccup and Toothless develop into a doughty team when two humongous, fire-breathing Sea Dragons pull up to shore, looking for the odd village or army to devour. Cowell adds lots of jagged, William Steig–like sketches to a narrative rich in dragon muck, cartoon violence, and characters with names like Snotlout and Dogsbreath the Duhbrain. 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. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: May 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-316-73737-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2004
BOOK TO SCREEN
Quick wit and a heroic heart win out over brawn and bravado in this follow-up to How to Train Your Dragon (2004). Mild-mannered Viking-in-training Hiccup—son of Stoick the Vast, “Terror of the Seas, Most High Ruler of the Hooligans, O Hear His Name and Tremble, Ugh, Ugh”—and his pipsqueak dragon, Toothless, survive storm, shipwreck, monsters, brutal outlaws and the jeers of bullying classmates to discover a huge treasure left by his renowned ancestor Grimbeard the Ghastly. Cowell works very hard to envelop events in a mantle of farce, inflicting characters with proudly borne names like Gobber the Belch and Hugefarts while strewing sudden disasters, stupid comments and crudely drawn sketches or inkblots throughout, but beneath it all, this is a semiserious exploration of what true heroism and leadership are all about. Not only does the larger-than-life Stoick turn out to be a loving father, but, having seen the ugly effects even a taste of treasure has on his fellow Hooligans, in the end Hiccup wisely elects to leave the real hoard hidden. Rank it with Debi Gliori’s Pure Dead series, a cut above Philip Ardagh’s out and out slapstick. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: May 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-316-15598-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2005
In this paint-by-numbers spin-off from the popular Dragonology (2003) and its many progeny, Steer pitches two young apprentice dragonologists into a struggle between scientific dragon researcher Dr. Ernest Drake and his unscrupulous rival, Ignatius Crook, for control of a powerful talisman. Thrilled to discover not only that dragons exist, but that their absent parents have actually been off in India for the past four years on a secret dragon rescue project, impulsive Daniel and his spunky sister Beatrice are repeatedly ambushed, captured, threatened and tricked by Crook and his evil Russian ally Alexandra Gorynytchka, while trailing Dr. Drake in search of a gem that’s one of 12 hidden “treasures” with assorted magical properties. Unabashedly pandering to rabid dracophiles, the author has dragons, though supposedly rare, popping up continually in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, and also gives his learned Doctor no compunctions about taking timeouts for lectures on dragon lore. Though illustrated with full-page, elaborately detailed views of characters and creatures, this outing is not only trite, it lacks the visual appeal of its “nonfictional” predecessors. (Fantasy. 10-12)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-7636-2810-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
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