| Author: Cressida Cowell Review By: Shiju Joseph Grade: 5 |
I simply love this series. This is book 2 in the How to Train your Dragon series.
The hero is Hiccup, the horrendous, the son of the chief of the Hooligan tribe. One day he will become the chief. But Hiccup does not like to fight or show off like the other Vikings. When he is caught up in adventures, he wins by using his brains. Hiccup doesn’t have a scary dragon or a brave friend. His dragon Toothless and his friend Fishlegs are both scaredy cats. But the nice thing about them is that they are loyal to Hiccup.
In this book, Hiccup and the other Hooligan boys train to be pirates. The students have to learn sword fighting on a boat, and there is even treasure. When he fights with Dogsbreath the Duhbrian, Hiccup loses the fight. But at the end of the fight, a coffin makes a hole in the boat. The words BEWARE! DO NOT OPEN THIS COFFIN are written on the coffin. No kid is going to leave the coffin if they see those words! Hiccup is surprised to find out that it is the coffin of Grimbeard the Ghastly, his great great grandfather.
The boys and their teacher Gobar bring the coffin to the Island of Berk. To their surprise, the coffin is not empty! When they open the coffin, a man with a hook, on the one hand, comes out. He says that he is a farmer, but he is not a farmer at all. There is some mystery surrounding him. Hiccup, the farmer (whose name is Alvin) and others try to find the treasure. They meet a monster, but Hiccup manages to come out strong in the end. The ending is my favourite because hiccup decides not to talk about all the things he did. He thinks it is better to be a good leader than to be a proud one.
Hiccup is like an average boy who has to learn a lot of things to become a hero. He is not proud either. He is more interested in learning how to think about others. When you are reading how the others insult him, you want Hiccup to fight back. But he has his own way of managing things. I think kids should definitely read this book. It has fart jokes, and name calling but that is just like our friend groups.
