How to Train your Dragon School – Flight of the Flamestrike

This book is the second in a new spin off series of How to Train your Dragon books following on from How to train your Dragon school – Doom of the Darkwing.

With many of the same characters as the original series and a zany adventure story, this accessible illustrated novel is likely to be very popular with fans of the franchise and new recruits too. There is no need for prior knowledge before reading this book; the opening introduces the fully imagined story world and characters.

Hiccup, the hero of the book will be well known to many young readers. As the story opens, we find him at the Viking and dragon training school along with 30 other warriors. Hiccup is a bit of a misfit; unlike his classmates he likes to think his way out of a problem rather than fight. In this story the arrival of his long-lost aunt leads to a problem for Hiccup and his friends. Their quest to find a solution takes them into inevitable danger, in particular from ‘Flamestrike,’ a very scary and deadly dragon.

The book is engagingly written in a lively style with a varied layout and amusing line drawings throughout. There is lots of humour in the text too, with insults designed to delight such as: ‘You miserable pieces of tadpole vomit!’ and fabulous similes, for example one character is described as having ‘a beard like an angry porcupine!’

With maps, illustrated character lists, dragon profiles, equipment logs and a dictionary for readers who fancy learning basic ‘dragonese,’ be prepared for lots of fun.