Home
  • Home
  • Latest Issue
  • Past Issues
  • Authors & Artists
  • Articles
  • Reviews
  • News
  • Forums
  • Search

How to Fight a Dragon’s Fury

  • View
  • Rearrange

Digital version – browse, print or download

Can't see the preview?
Click here!

How to print the digital edition of Books for Keeps: click on this PDF file link - click on the printer icon in the top right of the screen to print.

BfK Newsletter

Receive the latest news & reviews direct to your inbox!

BfK No. 215 - November 2015
Latest cover image as BfK 215 November 2015

This issue’s cover illustration is from Hare by Zoe Greaves illustrated by Leslie Sadleir. Thanks to Old Barn Books for their help with this Christmas cover.

Digital Edition
By clicking here you can view, print or download the fully artworked Digital Edition of BfK 215 November 2015 .

  • PDFPDF
  • Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly version
  • Send to friendSend to friend

How to Fight a Dragon’s Fury

Cressida Cowell
(Hodder Children's Books)
496pp, 978-1444916584, RRP £12.99, Hardcover
8-10 Junior/Middle
Buy "How To Train Your Dragon: 12: How to Fight a Dragon's Fury" on Amazon

This is the twelfth and last book in Cressida Cowell’s How to Train Your Dragon series. Like its predecessors, it pulsates with excitement tempered by humour and compassion. Readers however young will soon guess that the hero, mild and appeasing young Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, is never really going to succumb to the numerous diabolical attempts on his life. Even so the situations he keeps finding himself in often seem to allow no escape and his enemies are indeed fearsome. These are described not just in print but in the zany, scratchy, black line illustrations, also supplied by the author, that frequently stretch wildly over a double page spread. These too strike the exact balance between having fun and conveying a genuine sense of darkness.

Writing and illustrating to a high order is demanding enough for one book. But composing twelve separate adventures since 2003, all equally captivating, is an astonishing achievement. This last story perhaps lingers a little too long over its repeated insistence on the importance of love and trust above everything else, but Cowell has earned the right to come on so emphatically with a final message she clearly feels strongly about. She also loves her dragons and only parts with them at the very last moment, guaranteeing them a safe existence for the rest of time but well away from prying human eyes. Before that, these mighty creatures share space with mainly boastful Viking warriors all of whom bear inventively comic names and, like the dragons, tend to be child-like both in their reasoning and in the way they can switch at lightning speed from one emotion to its opposite.

With the whole series already selling over seven million copies and with a second film in the offing following a successful first one, Cowell is extremely good news both for readers and for publishing. Readers who have yet to acquaint themselves with her extraordinary series should consider putting this right as soon as possible. They will be in for a rare treat.

Reviewer: 
Nicholas Tucker
5
  • About us
  • Contact us
  • Help/FAQ
  • My Account