The fourth How To Train Your Dragon book continues telling the adventures of the fledgling viking, Hiccup, as he finds his place in the world.
Hiccup is the weedy and clever son of his viking clan’s chief, Stoik the Vast. Though he’s proven to his father (3 times now, given this is #4 in the series) that he is a cunning and clever future-chief, they continue to clash with one another.
This time, the rub centres around Hiccup’s friend, Fishlegs. Stoik thinks that Hiccup would be better off befriending Snotlout, a horrible bully who ridicules Hiccup as often as he can. But Snotlout is big and strong, while Fishlegs is weak and timid, so Stoik tries to force a friendship.
Meanwhile, Fishlegs is acting very odd. Beserk, in fact. It turns out he’s gravely ill, and only Hiccup can lead the charge to seize a cure to his illness: a mysterious vegetable called a Potato, that is kept closely guarded by the nearby Nutjob clan.
So, against his father’s wishes, Hiccup sets off to seize the mythical Potato and save his friend.
Though my son is now reading novels to himself at bedtime, occasionally, he lets me take the reins and read to him instead. We’ve worked our way through this book over the past few months during bedtime, and he loved every word of it (and the crude and entertaining illustrations). My only complaint about this book was not enough Toothless. I really love doing my Toothless voice and there just wasn’t enough material this time!
Overall, I’ll give 4 menacing Doomfang’s out of 5. It’s a continuing pleasure to read these books to my little guy.