How To Train Your Dragon (How to Train Your Dragon #1) by Cressida Cowell

🌟🌟🌟 out of 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Synopsis:

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III was a truly extraordinary Viking Hero. Warrior chieftain, awesome sword-fighter and amateur naturalist, he was known throughout Vikingdom as 'the Dragon Whisperer', on account of his amazing power over these terrifying beasts. But it wasn't always like that. In fact, 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...

First of all....David Tennant! I love him so much! I had no idea that he was the one that does the narration for the audio book of How to Train Your Dragon! He did such a brilliant job portraying the voices of the characters and putting emphasis on certain emotions at different points throughout the book. I think that I would have enjoyed this book either way but with one of my favorite actors reading it I loved it even more. 

This book was a fun, exciting read! It was very different from the movie which was surprising. I didn't expect it to be as different as it was. Hiccup isn't introduced to Toothless in the same way, there are no girls attempting to complete the viking training, dragons talk, and there are portions of the book that directors seemed to use in the second movie. 

Overall, the book was enjoyable due to its creative nature but I liked the movie better. It is rare for me to say something like that! Toothless is one of my favorite characters in the movie but I didn't really like him in the book. He is self-centered and rude to Hiccup. He annoyed me pretty badly as I listened to the book. I didn't really like how the dragons could talk either. I enjoy it more when I have to guess what they are thinking or feeling rather than being told by the dragons themselves as was the case in the book. I also liked the addition of the girls in the movie because it added a different type of energy to the trials of becoming a full fledged viking. I thought that the issue was also better in the movie because the tribe hated dragons which made Hiccup more of an outcast. In the book, he just seemed to be puny and weak compared to the other kids. I liked how the movie focused more on beliefs rather than what it took to be a viking and training dragons like dogs.