How to Train Your Dragon Books

Read the twelve novels in publisher order, beginning with How to Train Your Dragon and ending with How to Fight a Dragon's Fury. A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons is the sixth story despite its guide-like title; it belongs in the numbered plot between How to Twist a Dragon's Tale and How to Ride a Dragon's Storm.

The Complete Book of Dragons is a separate, full-color species guide and does not count as book #13. It is most useful after a child has met several dragons in the novels, but it does not have a required placement.

How to Train Your Dragon School is a separate spin-off about Hiccup's earlier lessons at the Isle of Berk's training school. Read Doom of the Darkwing before Fight of the Flamestrike. These easy-to-read school adventures do not continue the twelve-book story, so a child can try them after meeting Hiccup in book #1 without interrupting the main sequence.

The books inspired the DreamWorks films, but they tell a substantially different version of Hiccup and Toothless's story. A child who knows the movies should still begin with book #1 rather than trying to match a novel to a particular film.

Sources: Hachette's complete twelve-book series list, Hachette's educator guide and numbering, Hachette's Complete Book of Dragons guide, Hachette's How to Train Your Dragon School spin-off.

The first books use slapstick, gross-out jokes, dragon bites, Viking weapons, bullying, and repeated threats of being eaten or banished. Cowell's loose black-and-white drawings and exaggerated narration keep much of this feeling comic rather than realistic.

The continuing story becomes more serious. Later volumes include enslavement, war, torture threats, betrayal, major injuries, and meaningful character and animal deaths. Humor remains central, but sensitive readers may find the final books more emotionally intense than the playful opening suggests.