Cressida CowellKirja-arvosteluja

This audio presentation is quite good. The reading is great and the music between chapters adds to the mood. I haven't seen the movie, so was probably fortunate not to have the comparison since movies are often so different from the books on which they are based. I enjoy stories about characters who don't expect to rise above mediocrity striving to do so anyway.

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This book surprised me. I was originally turned off by the gross names and the strange art, but listened to as read by David Tennent I was cracking up along with my 6 year old.

Nem esti mesének való, de nagyon élvezetes olvasmány, remek karakterekkel és fordulatokkal (A filmekkel köszönőviszonyban sincs, kb a szereplők neve azonos, és ennyi. Azok is jók, meg ez is, teljesen másképp). A függővégek és a sodró lendület miatt önálló olvasás megszeretésére nagyon jó lehet, a további részeket megpróbálom a Kicsinek is majd erre tartogatni. A Nagy úgyis alig bírja, hogy ne spoilerezzen megállás nélkül.

I really enjoyed this read. I listen to this book as a audiobook and found it to be super fun read. I really loved the story and loved how the characters progressed through the novel. I really loved the two main characters and also how it was a mix between a adventure and magic story. I really loved the narrater of the audiobook and hope to read the sequel soon!

I really enjoyed this read. I listen to this book as a audiobook and found it to be super fun read. I really loved the story and loved how the characters progressed through the novel. I really loved the two main characters and also how it was a mix between a adventure and magic story. I really loved the narrater of the audiobook and hope to read the sequel soon!

One of the films that was on during the Thanksgiving holiday was "how To Train Your Dragon" with everything going on I did manage to sit down with the kids and see most of it. It is really good. Then I ran across these audios.. I'm hooked.

This is a really cute. funny, and clever set of stories.

It doesn't hurt that David Tennant - whom I'm familiar with as the 10th Doctor - is narrating. He's really quite good at reading this. I may just have to see how he is at the Doctor Who audiobooks now. :D

I read this book as an audio book and I have to say it was really good as an audio book. It was read by David Tenant and he gave such life to the character it made the experience even better.I have also read parts of the paperback and the story by itself is also well done. there are pictures and other added information in the book that just helped add to the story

Even though I'm way past the age of the target group for this book, I enjoyed it!
Xar learned a lesson but he stayed his annoying yet endearing self throughout his adventure.
Wish and Bodkin were interesting and funny at times but nothing more than that.

Listened to the audiobook, narrated by DAVID TENNANT, it was a fantastic experience, completely different from the movie and extremely funny and interesting

Se non avessi visto il film d'animazione, probabilmente How to train your dragon mi sarebbe piaciuto di più. Purtroppo, però, ormai nel mio cuore c'è la storia messa sullo schermo dalla DreamWorks e Cressida Cowell non è riuscita a scalzarla. Libro e film, infatti, sono molto diversi: praticamente due storie differenti vissute dagli stessi personaggi.

Rimangono alcuni temi in comune, come le incomprensioni padre/figlio e la stupidità di alcune tradizioni. Nel libro, lo scontro tra Hiccup e suo padre Stoick non è così drammatico come nel film, ma viene preso comunque a esempio del contrasto tra due stili di vita diversi.

Molto importante nel libro è il tema della gentilezza: trattare qualcuno (nello specifico, un drago) in maniera gentile farà sì che sia portato a ricambiarti e ad aiutarti quando ne avrai bisogno. Questo nel film è meno evidente se non nella misura in cui la “vichingaggine”, che comprende forza bruta nel senso di “picchiare prima di parlare”, alla fine si rivelerà inutile, se non dannosa.

Vi lascio i trailer dei due film d'animazione della DreamWorks, Dragon Trainer e Dragon Trainer 2.

[Video sul mio blog]

[Video sul mio blog]

Welcome to a world of dragons....

I absolutely loved the movie series How to Train Your Dragon. It blew my mind that it was based off a book, and ever since I had been chasing down a copy. It's been years of me trying to find it at local bookstores (because why just find it online? The hunt is way more fun), but I finally came across it. Not through a store, but through a friend! A friend of mine grew up reading and binging this series, and when I happened to mention it was one I was looking for - BAM! I borrowed the book. It's funny how things turn out, eh?

This book is the first in the series of How To Train Your Dragon. It follows Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III (we just call him Hiccup), and his journey to become a Viking. There's a special ritual the men of the tribe have to go through. They collect a dragon and train it. Once they've trained their dragon and completed special quests, voila! Viking! Hiccup is a little awkward turtle though. He ends up picking the smallest dragon, who most people are sure is the most wildly available (and kind of bland) dragon, but Toothless ends up being anything but. Small but mighty!

Hiccup and the band of misfits all end up totally blowing their chances at becoming Vikings... Until, by chance, a giant problem arises. Mean, evil dragons are there to destroy their crew! Well, this sounds like a time to call a bunch of hooligan Viking-wannabes and their barely trained dragons, right? It might not be the most sound of logic, but they take a chance anyways!

This book is an absolute delight. If you're like me, you watched the movie first and then were oddly surprised when the book was NOTHING like the movie. They are vastly different, but still both excellent in their own right. You can tell that the movie took inspiration from the book but didn't follow it 100%. I like that! It makes both of them their own separate entities. I honestly can't wait to grab more books in the series. This book was an absolute delight.

I definitely recommend middle graders picking this book up. It's fun, fast paced, has pictures and will take you away to a fantasy land. It's goofy, silly and just a delight to read. I highly recommend it! Why, you might ask? Well, Hiccup is a lovable character with great ethics and goals. He does his best, isn't perfect but still comes off as likeable and very real. He's not whiny, or bratty, or anything annoying (like some other middle grade books). He wants to do his best and really tries to help everyone out. He loves his family, his dragon and his friends (even if some are super annoying). Then you have Toothless - he's quite the little dragon who packs a very sassy punch. He's a fun character who has a great character arc. Once you get past your main characters, you have a wealth of dragons and fun quirks about each of them. You can learn about the many fictional characters and be amazed by how much Cressida Cowell has put into them. Plus the humour in this book is awesome. It's not all fart jokes - it holds up whether you are a kid or an adult. It put a big smile on my face.

Four out of five stars!

This book was exactly what I wanted, a quick and fun read. It wasn't the best book ever, but I like it a lot. I listened to the audiobook, and my favorite part was David Tennant's narration. His different voices and sound effects were well done.

Really enjoyable children’s book with excellent narration by David Tennant.

very nice end to the series. this isn't my favorite of the books but i really, really, really love what she does here with her messaging. like all of it. around what makes a hero, how that works in real life, what it means to stand up for the right thing but how that can be so hard, how there wasn't a dragon massacre that wiped them out but that they're hiding and waiting for a better world that we can create. that it's up to us to be better, to do better, and to make the world better. beautiful.

and she did it with this set of silly, fun adventures that at first never seemed like they were going somewhere so profound and serious. she also did it with a ton of inconsistencies that drove me crazy as i was reading, but it's ok.

what a fun, worthy adventure these 12 books have been.½

Fun book to read aloud with the kids. Significantly different than the movie, but I liked this version too.

the adventure and moral messaging remain engaging and fun; there continue to be inconsistencies that i think i've mostly forgotten to write about but that can be a bit annoying. still, this is leading up to what i expect to be a satisfying and probably both hard but worthy ending. it's a fun series.½

i really like what she's doing with her overall discussion of what makes a hero, and it's becoming more clear that heroism is both not about brute force and also potentially a burden. this seems to be heading to the critical juncture and i suspect that another main point she is going to get to might be that the hero can't always win or save everyone. i really liked seeing hiccup's mother, valhallarama, come to his defense in this one.

Funny, and punny, but not as cute, or endearing, as I'd hoped for.

This was a pretty easy read, lots of repetition of animals and the noises they make as the creatures try to settle the crying baby. The repetition is good for children learning language and it has the same effect on me learning German as an adult. Duck & cow were new ones to me. Also contains tense change, which is interesting.

I'm split between 2 and 3 stars. It was enjoyable but the greek translation was a bit too gendered for my tastes.
Concidering checking the rest of the series.

i think this is my favorite in the series so far. there's really a lot more depth being explored - about what it means to be a hero or a villain, about how that happens, about who is strong (or just appears physically strong but isn't strong otherwise), how even the good guys can't always win, and (i think what's coming is also) how something terrible might be coming and maybe even a hero can't save the day for everyone. plus it's a fun adventure to keep the kids totally engaged, with humor and battles and lots of silliness. and even 9 books in, getting better.½

Lighthearted enjoyable read. Fishlegs, Hiccup and Toothless were fun characters. The story was fast paced and the humour was amusing.

we're starting to see, i think, some foreshadowing of where this is going or how it's going to come to a head, and probably how it's going to end. this was an interesting one, while still being a fun adventure.

this was another fun one. i particularly like the commentary in the epilogue, where hiccup really starts to understand his value as a different kind of hero. he explains it in concrete terms, for any of the younger readers who might have missed the point up until now.