An unmissable collection of three How to Train Your Dragon stories, featuring new and exclusive short story WHEN THE WINDWALKER CHANGED.
Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third is a smallish Viking with a longish name. The Hairy Hooligan tribe think he's totally useless, but Hiccup is brave enough to face his destiny, with the help of one tiny dragon.
This collection features three stories about Hiccup at different times in his life, including one BRAND-NEW
1. Hiccup's dragon Toothless gives his best tips on training a human in HOW TO TRAIN YOUR VIKING
2. A deadly sea dragon stalks the Isle of Berk in THE DAY OF THE DREADER
3. And the BRAND-NEW WHEN THE WINDWALKER CHANGED, packed with action, adventure and grand reveals! Fully illustrated with Cressida Cowell's artwork, this deluxe paperback is a perfect gift for all fans of the global phenomenon How to Train Your Dragon.
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR VIKING and THE DAY OF THE DREADER were originally published as World Book Day titles in 2006 and 2012 respectively.
Cressida Cowell grew up in London and on a small, uninhabited island off the west coast of Scotland. She was convinced that there were dragons living on this island, and has been fascinated by dragons ever since. She has a BA in English Literature from Oxford University, a BA in Graphic Design from St Martin's and an MA in Narrative Illustration from Brighton. Cressida loves illustrating her own work, but also loves writing books for other people to illustrate as the end result can be so unexpected and inspiring. Cressida has written and illustrated eight books in the popular Hiccup series. The unique blend of child centred humour and sublime prose made Hiccup an instant hit. How to Train Your Dragon is now published in over 30 languages. A DreamWorks Animation feature film is out in March 2010. Also the author of picture books, Cressida has won the Nestle Children's Book Prize 2006 and has been shortlisted for many others. Cressida lives in Hammersmith with her husband and three children.
Her Books: 1. How to Train Your Dragon (2003) 2. How to Be a Pirate (2004) 3. How to Speak Dragonese (2005) 4. How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse (2006) 5. How to Twist a Dragon’s Tale (2007) 6. A Hero’s Guide to Deadly Dragons (2008) 7. How to Ride a Dragon’s Storm (2008) 8. How to Break a Dragon’s Heart (2010) 9. How to Steal a Dragon's Sword (2011) 10. How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel (2012)
This was a read aloud with my 6yo son. We have listened to the original 12 book series several times but this was our first time reading it. And the pictures are fantastic! They really add to the experience! I absolutely loved all three of these novellas! The first two are very humorous light hearted reads with lower stakes that take place towards the front end of the original series. My son loved the humor and we both laughed out loud the whole time. The last novella takes place years after the original series ends and it is MIND BLOWING. When are we getting more books!?!?!?!????? Wind walker is my favorite dragon. Hiccup. Is. A. HERO. I’m excited about the new characters introduced too!
SPOILERS and book notes: I love that it is from toothless perspective. They are doing a hunting competition on the hopeful puffin with hiccup, toothless, fishlegs and horrorcow! Horrorcow is hilarious and useless. Snoutlout snd dogsbreath are there. Dogsbreath has a gronkle and that is treys favorite dragon bc of the rhino horn it has. The loser has to clean out the dragon toilet and Trey died with laughter. They are nervous about Dark breathers, shark worms, and drag dragons. Toothless was tricked into gorging himself with nanodragons so was too sick to hunt. And then darkness fell and plot twist!!! Toothless ate glow worm nano dragons so his glowing belly attracted all the fish into their net they found lol. Until his belly also attracted a Darkbreather! (A dragon with sharp teeth and snake body that drags its victims into the bottom of the ocean to suck their blood. All he wanted was the “star” or in other words toothless. But hiccup said: “No! I will NOT give him up!” And toothless never forgot this. Even when he was an old dragon. And hiccup never has…. Anyways… hiccup told him he would have to swallow the whole boat. So the darkbreather unhinged his jaws like a snake and got his mouth around it by the mast went through his head and stabbed his brain. Then they rowed back to shore with the dragon hooked to their boat and horrorcow towing them too. With a boat full of fish. It scared dogsbreath and Snoutlout that they tipped and lost their fish. They teased Gobber and he thought they were a ghost. And hiccup proved his point that Vikings are not never frightened of anything. And that everybody is frightened of something. Next story is about the dreader who is the most frightening sea dragon of all that is haunting the isle of berk. Toothless eggs he was about to eat cracked open and baby dragons are inside! They call toothless “papa” and he finds them so annoying but secretly loves them lol. The dreader said to the Vikings “you stole my future!” It turned out that the Dreader was only a giant STINKDRAGON! Hahaha it spit them with smelly goo. Then hiccup delivers the babies to their giant dad. This last story is EVERYTHING. Many years after the 12th book in the series… the Viking king over the EAST named King Dreardread (and his son that reminds me of hiccup named Sebastian the Skilful) had a prisoner brought before them that was trying to free all their dragons. He was a young man who said he was leader of the Wilderwest. He stayed silent with all the accusations. And then finally he spoke “My name is HICCUP,' said the lad. 'And the dragons should be FREE: SMASH!!! The moment Hiccup stopped talking, the great window behind them all exploded into smithereens as a blast of dragon-lightning came streaking down from the skies above and forked through the room.” Then he jumped out the window: “A leap of faith. Trusting that he would be saved and having a complete belief in who or what would save him. Even though what might save him was free as a bird and under no obligation to do so. And he was right to have that faith. For just before he reached the rocks below, out of nowhere... ... a flash of black came down from the sky. So swift was it, unimaginably quick, really, that you could barely see what it was. A wild black dragon.” This lightning shooting blacj dragon was WINDWALKER!! Hiccup freed all the dragons and threatened if the king imprisoned them again, he WOULD BE BACK. The son is cool though: “Sebastian was looking through the clear eyes of a child. And he hadn't seen a Liar. He hadn't seen an Enemy. What Dreardread's son had seen was a HERO.” Windwalkers are a rare breed. As babies they are furry and feathery. Then they are slow and awkward. Then they shed their fur and become fast! Then at 17yo they enter in to a chrysalis stage (a cocoon) and come out as a dragon called the Dark Defender. AWWWW!
I always have and always will love the HTTYD books. They were my entire childhood and even through to being at university, I find comfort in these books and was thrilled to find this in my local Waterstones. I will always sing praises for these books and I loved this collection of short stories. 10/10, Hiccup will always be my favourite!