How To Train Your Dragon Series by Cressida Cowell - Age 8-12

Wanna know how to REALLY upset your local librarian? Hold up a copy of "How To Train Your Dragon" and say:

"This is a BOOK?!?"

This is how Sam managed to annoy OUR local librarian, and how, a few years ago (shortly after the first movie came out) we discovered these books. (The librarian was a HUGE fan of the books. Not so much the movie.)

"How to Train Your Dragon" is actually a series of 12 books written by British Author Cressida Cowell. Ms. Cowell had an amazing upbringing on an unpopulated island off Scotland that I wish I could replicate for my kids. So obviously, she is the perfect candidate to record Hiccup's memoirs.


(The above box set only includes titles 1-11. I can't find a box set with all 12. )

While I have not read these, Sam (who is 12 but started reading the series 3-4 ish years ago...) LOVED THEM.

If you ask what his favorite book of all time is, he will say this entire series.

Sam is a little picky about his books, takes his sweet time reading them, and can't be bothered to push through something if it's the least bit slow/boring/annoying or uninteresting. So this is high praise indeed.

These books are fairly easy reads. Not too many words per page and lots of simple but cute illustrations. They are also funny. A big bonus for the readers in my family. We LOVE funny.

So if you have a kid who needs a good long series, likes dragons and battles, and loves to laugh, this might be the series you're looking for.  Since I haven't read these, I don't know if they appeal equally to girls. Don't know if they have many female characters or how girls are represented in the books. If you have a daughter who has read them, let me know what she thinks!

{Post edit: Two different mom's of girls told me on FB their daughters liked these and one said the audio version is great for road-trips!!}

HAPPY READING,
Emily


From the How to Train Your Dragon Website:
In the beginning, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III was the most put upon Viking you'd ever seen. Not loud enough to make himself heard at dinner with his father, Stoick the Vast; not hard enough to beat his chief rival, Snotlout, at Bashyball, the number one school sport and CERTAINLY not stupid enough to go into a cave full of dragons to find a pet...