Having randomly selected a nine-year-old from within my household, I place two books in front of him: How to Train Your Dragon and How to Be a Pirate, both by Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, translated from the Old Norse by Cressida Cowell.

Have we ever met before?
Well, yes.

Are you familiar with these two tomes?
Oh, yes.

What are they about?
The first one is about Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, he is the son of one of the most feared Viking kings ever, and he is learning how to train his dragon, Toothless. Now that he has trained his dragon, the second one is about how he has to learn how to be a pirate- how to fight and to steer a ship. Hiccup has a very good friend named Fishlegs. His cousin is very mean and snotty, which is why his name is Snotlout. They have lots of running around and many insults. They have a few drawings for every few chapters, like there are pictures of each of the boys at the beginning. And the pages are pretty cut up. They don’t look so much like normal books because they have stains and stuff on them.

I’ve been meaning to ask you. Where did those stains come from?
On How to Train Your Dragon, there’s kind of claw slashes. On How to Be a Pirate, those are bloodstains.

I see. Who do you think would enjoy them?
Older kids who like to read and have a good sense of humor. If you’ve read any Geronimo Stilton books, then you would like these “tomes.”

August, 2005