![]() I have my doubts about Cowell’s writing style. The film retained the books’ main message: that you needn’t be the strongest or loudest or an adult to win friends and fight enemies, that cleverness and diplomacy and understanding can conquer monsters, that what seems heartless (dragons and people) may be only misunderstood. It’s lighthearted in the main, lighter than the film, illustrated with childish drawings (some are better than others) and splattered with… ink? blood? It’s humorous, though relies more on hyperbole, the unexpected, undergarments, and bodily functions than the sarcasm of the film. Independently of the movie or beside it, the book is enjoyable. Moviemakers might be interested in the book for the same challenge. Many of the pieces are there, but they aren’t always what they seem. ![]() Sad, I know, but I’m a girl, and I still enjoyed it.įor fans of the movie, reading through the book and matching the bits of scrap fabric from which DreamWorks’ quilt is made is a fun challenge. How to Train Your Dragon is a boys’ book through and through. Stoick and Hiccup’s relationship is still rocky because Stoick clings to the traditional Viking way, and Hiccup is “a talking fishbone,” but Gobber is no go-between, and the restoration of a loving father-son relationship takes back-seat to Hiccup’s unlikely heroism in the book’s plot. Hiccup would be left without a rival for the remainder of the series if he did. He does not reconcile with Hiccup by the end of the book. ![]() Snotlout is there, arrogant, but bullying and now Hiccup’s cousin with designs for the chieftainship. His best friend is the allergy-ridden Fishlegs, also not likely to be nominated most likely to succeed. He is still an unlikely hero, who doesn’t look or act like a “proper” Viking should. ![]() Hiccup is still the sarcastic only son of Chief Stoick the Vast. The only thing remarkable about Toothless, a Common or Garden dragon (who knows where DreamWorks got the idea for a Night Fury), is his very, very small size (Terrible Terror-sized maybe). In Cressida Cowell’s book How to Train Your Dragon, first in a series of “memoirs” by Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, dragons are not pests they’re pets, cat-like creatures about the size of leopards with the same duties as hunting falcons. ![]()
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