How to Train Your Dragon

How to Train Your Dragon

Cover of the first edition of How to Train Your Dragon
How to Train Your Dragon How to Be a Pirate How to Speak Dragonese How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse How to Twist a Dragon's Tale A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons How to Ride a Dragon's Storm How to Break a Dragon's Heart How to Steal a Dragon's Sword How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel How to Betray a Dragon's Hero How to Fight a Dragon's Fury
Author	Cressida Cowell
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Fantasy, young adult fiction, coming of age
Publisher	Hodder Children's Books (UK) Little, Brown and Company (US)
Published	2003–2015
Media type	Print (hardback & paperback) Audiobook

How to Train Your Dragon is a series of twelve children's books written by British author Cressida Cowell. The books are set in a fictional Viking world and focus on the experiences of protagonist Hiccup as he overcomes great obstacles on his journey of Becoming a Hero the Hard Way. The books were published by Hodder Children's Books in the UK and by Little, Brown and Company in the US. The first book was published in 2003 and the last one in 2015.

The books have subsequently been made into a franchise consisting of two feature films of the same name, several short stories and a animated television series produced by DreamWorks Animation. A third movie is due to be released around 2019.

Cowell has published twelve full novels, based around the adventures of Hiccup. The first book was published in 2003, and the last in 2015. Almost all the books have titles based around an instruction guide:

Cowell published the supplementary spin-off stories as part of the series: The Day of the Dreader is a short story published in 2012 and the novella How To Train Your Viking was published as part of World Book Day 2006 and is claimed to be written by the dragon Toothless and translated by Cowell. Both of these titles were published in the USA as part of the May 2014 How to Train Your Dragon Special Edition: With Brand New Short Stories! paperback movie tie-in edition. A picture book, Hiccup the Seasick Viking published in 2000, is not considered a part of the series despite featuring the same character of Hiccup. An illustrative guide to the dragon world, titled The Incomplete Book of Dragons, was released in June 2014 (in the US it is titled The Complete Book of Dragons).

Cowell cites the Scottish Inner Hebrides islands and stories of Scandinavian Scotland as inspirations for the book.