Hiccup Haddock is a Viking. Evidently, to be a good Viking he needs pirate training. So off he goes with some other Vikings to train. And then there’s a quest for treasure which I suppose is something both Vikings and pirates do. I’m not entirely sure. I found very little in this book that was pirate-y, which will be fine for readers who’ve followed Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon, but may be let down for readers in search of good pirate lore. Small doodles adorn the pages providing relief from the tedium of reading.
In the interest of full disclosure, I need to share that I never read the first book in the How to Train Your Dragon series, nor did I see the movie. Therefore it is possible that I missed whatever it was about this series that was supposed to get me “hooked.” Because I was not hooked. I’ll set my reading experience down as tolerance. I tolerated it. But just barely. I repeatedly had to stop myself from skimming so that I could record the content information (a far cry from books where I hate the interruption of recording content data).
Despite the juvenile tone of the book, vocabulary could be difficult (notables include: barbarian, emigrating and gorsebraken) for some. There are also an awful lot of characters to keep in mind, which is somewhat helped by an illustrated guide at the start of the book. While I’m not big into lumping books into boys/girls categories, I don’t know that there are any female characters in this, which may impact its ability to hold a female audience.
Great for: Fans of Diary of a Wimpy Kid who are also into fantasy. While I didn’t find this anywhere near as offensive as I found the Wimpy kid books, there was something in the tone that felt similar. But that’s good right? People LOVE Wimpy Kid, and these are slightly longer, so maybe they’ll encourage reading? Silver lining?
Sex, Nudity, Dating – None.
Profanity – If you’re into Norse religion, you might be offended by “for Thor’s sake” and “What in Valhalla.” Those aside, there’s just a swear of “neff off” which seemed a tad too close to “f__ off” for my linking but is unlikely to offend.
Death, Violence and Gore – Pirates + Vikings = Violence. There are copious weapons, from swords to axes to daggers. They’re all used. During a shipwreck, souls are swallowed and their bones are ground to sand. There’s a corpse, that’s not really a real corpse, but it’s described as slimy, drippy, green and yellow and decaying before we’re let in on the fact that it’s not a real corpse. Some are killed during a swordfight. There are dangerous dragons, including ones that will cut your Achilles and then eat you alive. There are lot of treats of death and violence. The major action scenes are all battles, including one a boat with lots of pirate fighting and killing and one with a Strangulator, a beast that can poison or strangle you and is see through so you can see his prey inside him.
Drugs, Alcohol and Smoking – There’s a character called Beerbelly and they drink currant wine.
Frightening or Intense Things – See above.
