Original series
The How to Train Your Dragon books must be read in publication order.[1][17-28] Readers should start with How to Train Your Dragon, which introduces Hiccup, Toothless, Berk, and the central main-book continuity.[2-13]
The twelve main books form one cumulative story following Hiccup from his dragon initiation through the struggle over human and dragon freedom. Later installments build on earlier relationships, objects, prophecies, and unresolved threats, so skipping among them would obscure the central narrative.[2-13]
The eight companion and supplementary books sit outside that required path. How to be a Viking presents an earlier childhood adventure,[29] The Day of the Dreader is a side story,[30] Incomplete Book of Dragons and A Journal for Heroes are supplementary works,[31-32] and the two collections assemble short fiction with some overlap.[33-34] The publication order is the most useful route because it preserves the main series’ introductions and escalation while letting readers add companions separately.[17-28][35-43]
It’s necessary to read the How to Train Your Dragon main books in publication order,[17-28] while the companion books and the How To Train Your Dragon School books are optional,[15-16][29-34] by following this sequence:
| Order | Cover | Title | First published | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Main books | ||||
| 1 |
|
How to Train Your Dragon | 2003[17] | Introduces Hiccup, Toothless, Berk, and the conflict that begins the central story. |
| 2 |
|
How to Be a Pirate | 2004[18] | Expands Grimbeard’s legacy and introduces Alvin as a threat. |
| 3 |
|
How to Speak Dragonese | 2005[19] | Adds Roman opposition, Camicazi, and a larger role for Hiccup’s Dragonese knowledge. |
| 4 |
|
How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse | 2006[20] | Connects a winter rescue quest to consequences from the Fort Sinister adventure. |
| 5 |
|
How to Twist a Dragon’s Tale | 2007[21] | Develops the Fire-Stone crisis, Hiccup’s family history, and Alvin’s return. |
| 6 |
|
A Hero’s Guide to Deadly Dragons | 2007[22] | Sets an adventure on Hiccup’s twelfth birthday that expands the series’ lore about books and dragons. |
| 7 |
|
How to Ride a Dragon’s Storm | 2008[23] | Carries Hiccup beyond the Archipelago and expands the series’ freedom-and-leadership concerns. |
| 8 |
|
How to Break a Dragon’s Heart | 2009[24] | Opens the struggle around the lost throne and buried Hooligan history. |
| 9 |
|
How to Steal a Dragon’s Sword | 2011[25] | Escalates the conflict around Furious, the Crown, and the Lost Things. |
| 10 |
|
How to Seize a Dragon’s Jewel | 2012[26] | Continues Hiccup’s search for the Jewel through Prison Darkheart. |
| 11 |
|
How to Betray a Dragon’s Hero | 2013[27] | Continues the race for the Lost Things amid divided loyalties and the struggle for Tomorrow. |
| 12 |
|
How to Fight a Dragon’s Fury | 2015[28] | Concludes the main narrative as the struggle for Tomorrow reaches its final day. |
| Companion books | ||||
| 1 |
|
How to be a Viking | 2000[35] | Earlier childhood companion about Hiccup’s first sea journey. |
| 2 |
|
How to Train Your Viking | 2006[44-45] | Toothless recounts a contest that tests Hiccup’s loyalty, courage, and quick thinking. |
| 3 |
|
The Day of the Dreader | 2012[36] | Optional Berk side story later included in both short-story collections. |
| 4 |
|
Incomplete Book of Dragons | 2014[37-40] | Illustrated reference work cataloging species, care, training, and observation. |
| 5 |
|
A Journal for Heroes | 2014[41] | Interactive companion with quotations, songs, drawings, prompts, and jokes. |
| 6 |
|
How to Train Your Hogfly | 2023[46-47] | Hiccup must train an untrainable dragon to save Stoick and prevent a Viking blood feud. |
| 7 |
|
The How To Train Your Dragon Short Story Collection | 2023[42] | Audio collection containing three Hiccup and Toothless stories. |
| 8 |
|
How To Train Your Dragon: Dragon Tales Collection | 2024[43] | Illustrated collection repeating two earlier stories and adding a Windwalker tale. |
Works in sequence
The twelve main books form the required narrative path and should be read in sequence.[2-13] The companion books add earlier adventures, reference material, journal content, and collected short stories,[29-34] but they are optional and do not follow Hiccup’s main arc.
Main books
1. How to Train Your Dragon
How to Train Your Dragon (2003)[17] follows ten-and-a-half-year-old Hiccup through the Hairy Hooligans’ dangerous dragon-initiation program. His tiny dragon Toothless proves difficult to train just as ancient sea dragons threaten Berk.[2]
This book establishes the principal cast, Dragonese, Hiccup’s unconventional approach to leadership, and the continuity carried through later main books.[2]
2. How to Be a Pirate
How to Be a Pirate (2004)[18] follows Hiccup during pirate training and a quest for Grimbeard’s lost treasure. A mysterious castaway and a booby-trapped island turn the expedition into a conflict over Hiccup’s inheritance.[3]
This book expands the series’ history, introduces Alvin as a threat, and begins the Lost Things material that grows in importance.[3]
3. How to Speak Dragonese
How to Speak Dragonese (2005)[19] places Hiccup and Fishlegs aboard a Roman ship carrying captured dragons. Their escape leads to Fort Sinister, where Hiccup meets Camicazi and faces a familiar enemy in a new role.[4]
This installment broadens the political world, strengthens Dragonese as Hiccup’s defining skill, and develops conflicts that return in later books.[4]
4. How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse
How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse (2006)[20] follows a winter rescue quest after a supposed Venomous Vorpent sting threatens Fishlegs. Hiccup and Camicazi cross the frozen sea in search of a potato believed to provide the only cure.[5]
The adventure connects the Fort Sinister aftermath to the continuing story while intensifying Hiccup’s loyalty to Fishlegs.[5]
5. How to Twist a Dragon’s Tale
How to Twist a Dragon’s Tale (2007)[21] centers on volcanic danger, Rogue dragons, and the return of the celebrated Hero Humungously Hotshot. Hiccup searches for the Fire-Stone while Alvin works against him again.[6]
This book develops Valhallarama’s past, expands the history of Lava-Lout Island, and moves Alvin’s campaign into the main narrative.[6]
6. A Hero’s Guide to Deadly Dragons
A Hero’s Guide to Deadly Dragons (2007)[22] finds Hiccup breaking into the forbidden Meathead Public Library on his twelfth birthday. The theft becomes a dangerous encounter involving Camicazi, Fishlegs, rare dragons, and a book connected to an earlier Hiccup.[7]
This installment strengthens Hiccup’s role as a writer and dragon scholar while expanding the series’ recorded dragon lore.[7]
7. How to Ride a Dragon’s Storm
How to Ride a Dragon’s Storm (2008)[23] begins with an intertribal swimming race that carries Hiccup, Fishlegs, and Camicazi far from home. Their capture aboard Norbert’s ship leads them toward America and into the plight of enslaved Wanderers.[8]
This book broadens Hiccup’s ideas about freedom, law, and leadership, concerns that become central later in the sequence.[8]
8. How to Break a Dragon’s Heart
How to Break a Dragon’s Heart (2009)[24] begins with Camicazi missing and Hiccup drawn into Uglithug and Berserk territory. His search uncovers history connecting Grimbeard, Berserk, and the lost throne.[9]
This book opens the late-series struggle over kingship and the human-dragon future that drives the remaining main installments.[9]
9. How to Steal a Dragon’s Sword
How to Steal a Dragon’s Sword (2011)[25] brings the Viking Tribes to a swordfighting school as dragon attacks signal Furious’s return. Hiccup searches beneath the school for the lost Crown while Alvin and Excellinor manipulate the competition above.[10]
This installment escalates the conflict and consolidates the Lost Things quest that shapes the closing volumes.[10]
10. How to Seize a Dragon’s Jewel
How to Seize a Dragon’s Jewel (2012)[26] follows Hiccup through a war-torn Archipelago as he frees trapped dragons. He enters Prison Darkheart to find Stoick and Fishlegs while pursuing the Dragon Jewel and the route to Tomorrow.[11]
This book advances the war, expands Fishlegs’s history, and moves Hiccup’s claim to kingship toward its decisive stage.[11]
11. How to Betray a Dragon’s Hero
How to Betray a Dragon’s Hero (2013)[27] follows Hiccup after he rescues Snotlout during the Dragon Rebellion. Snotlout offers a route into Alvin and Excellinor’s hidden camp, where the Lost Things and captured allies are being held.[12]
This installment tests the series’ loyalties and carries the Lost Things struggle toward Tomorrow.[12]
12. How to Fight a Dragon’s Fury
How to Fight a Dragon’s Fury (2015)[28] opens with an injured, amnesiac Hiccup on Hero’s End as the struggle for Tomorrow reaches its final day. Hiccup must recover his identity, reach the island, and confront the last conflict between humans and dragons.[13]
This book resolves the series’ kingship, slavery, rebellion, and coexistence storylines while closing Hiccup’s memoir.[13]
Companion books
1. How to be a Viking
How to be a Viking (2000)[35] follows a younger Hiccup on his first sea voyage, where fear and seasickness challenge Viking expectations. Stoick and Old Wrinkly help frame a story about how courage can include admitting fear.[29]
This companion supplies an early childhood adventure outside the required main-book path. It occurs before How to Train Your Dragon.[29]
2. How to Train Your Viking
How to Train Your Viking (2006)[44-45] follows Hiccup, Fishlegs, and Toothless during a nighttime fishing competition. After Toothless overeats glowing nanodragons, their light attracts both an enormous shoal of mackerel and a deadly Darkbreather, forcing Hiccup to protect his dragon and find an unexpected way back to Berk.[48]
Told from Toothless’s perspective, this self-contained World Book Day story highlights Hiccup’s loyalty and early promise as a leader. It is optional and was later included in The How To Train Your Dragon Short Story Collection and Dragon Tales Collection.[48]
3. The Day of the Dreader
The Day of the Dreader (2012)[36] follows Berk during a hunger crisis caused by an immense sea dragon. Hiccup investigates the creature while Toothless’s stolen eggs create trouble at home.[30]
This companion offers a self-contained side adventure about legend, misunderstanding, and Dragonese. The same story is included in both short-story collections.[30]
4. Incomplete Book of Dragons
Incomplete Book of Dragons (2014)[37-40] presents a young Viking’s field guide to dragon anatomy, habitats, eggs, care, training, flight, and dangerous species. Its entries combine practical observation with illustrated classifications and reference charts.[31]
This book is a dragon reference work rather than a narrative installment, so it is optional and has no required position.[31]
5. A Journal for Heroes
A Journal for Heroes (2014)[41] gathers quotations, Viking songs, drawings, dragon jokes, and blank spaces for readers’ own illustrations. Its format is interactive rather than plot-driven.[32]
This companion extends the series as an activity journal and can be used independently of the main sequence.[32]
6. How to Train Your Hogfly
How to Train Your Hogfly (2023)[46-47] follows Hiccup after Stoick excludes important guests from the Inter-Tribe Bury the Hatchet Games. The slight places Stoick in mortal danger and threatens a new blood feud, leaving Hiccup to save his father by training a supposedly untrainable dragon.[49]
This self-contained story takes place before the Great Dragon Rebellion.[49] It was first published in print in the twentieth-anniversary edition of How to Train Your Dragon rather than as a standalone volume.[46-47]
7. The How To Train Your Dragon Short Story Collection
The How To Train Your Dragon Short Story Collection (2023)[42] collects How to Train Your Viking, The Day of the Dreader, and How to Train Your Hogfly in audiobook form. The stories return to Hiccup, Toothless, and the Hooligans through separate adventures.[33]
This companion includes How to Train Your Hogfly and overlaps with the separately published volume The Day of the Dreader and with the other collection.[33]
8. How To Train Your Dragon: Dragon Tales Collection
How To Train Your Dragon: Dragon Tales Collection (2024)[43] gathers How to Train Your Viking, The Day of the Dreader, and When the Windwalker Changed. Its stories follow Hiccup at different points in his life, with the Windwalker tale new to this collection.[34]
This companion repeats two stories available elsewhere in the series while adding one exclusive story.[34]
How To Train Your Dragon School series
The How To Train Your Dragon School books do not need to be read in order, though the publication order provides the clearest introduction to the school and its recurring cast.[50-52] Readers should start with Doom of the Darkwing, which introduces Hiccup’s school adventures through a disastrous battle lesson.[15-16]
Both books follow Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, Toothless, Windwalker, and their friends at the Isle of Berk’s Training School for Vikings and Dragons. Each installment centers on a separate lesson that develops into a dangerous adventure, so the plots are episodic rather than cumulative.[15-16]
It’s unnecessary to read the How To Train Your Dragon School books in order.[15-16] However, they may be read in publication order by following this sequence:[50-51]
| Order | Cover | Title | First published | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
|
Doom of the Darkwing | 2025[50] | Introduces the school through an Art of Battle lesson. |
| 2 |
|
Fight of the Flamestrike | 2026[51] | Presents another school lesson involving a ship. |
1. Doom of the Darkwing
Doom of the Darkwing (2025)[50] follows Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, Toothless, Windwalker, and their friends during an Art of Battle lesson. A lesson meant to be quiet sends them onto stormy seas aboard a sinking ship.[15]
This book establishes the series’ school-based adventure format, with a disastrous lesson becoming a self-contained crisis.[15]
2. Fight of the Flamestrike
Fight of the Flamestrike (2026)[51] sends Hiccup and his fellow Vikings into a lesson about boarding enemy ships at sea. The group discovers a vessel with a torn sail and nobody steering it, then boards it despite the warning signs.[16]
This book provides another self-contained school adventure, with a different lesson turning into a new danger.[16]
References
- How To Train Your Dragon Series in Order | Cressida Cowell. Hachette Book Group.
- How to Train Your Dragon. Hodder Children’s Books. ISBN: 9780340997161.
- How to Be a Pirate. Hodder Children’s Books. ISBN: 9780340999080.
- How to Speak Dragonese. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN: 9780340999097.
- How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse. Hodder Children’s Books. ISBN: 9780340999103.
- How to Twist a Dragon’s Tale. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN: 9780340999110.
- A Hero’s Guide to Deadly Dragons. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN: 9780340999134.
- How to Ride a Dragon’s Storm. Hodder Children’s Books. ISBN: 9780340999127.
- How to Break a Dragon’s Heart. Hodder Children’s Books. ISBN: 9780340996928.
- How to Steal a Dragon’s Sword. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN: 9781444900941.
- How to Seize a Dragon’s Jewel. Hodder Children’s Books. ISBN: 9781444908794.
- How to Betray a Dragon’s Hero. Hodder Children’s Books. ISBN: 9781444913989.
- How to Fight a Dragon’s Fury. Hodder Children’s Books. ISBN: 9781444916591.
- How To Train Your Dragon School. Hachette Book Group.
- Doom of the Darkwing. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. ISBN: 9780316594424.
- Fight of the Flamestrike. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. ISBN: 9780316594462.
- How to Train Your Dragon. Hodder Children’s Books. Copyright page. ISBN: 9780340997161.
- How to Train Your Dragon: How to Be a Pirate. Hodder Children’s Books. Copyright page. ISBN: 9780340999080.
- How to Train Your Dragon: How to Speak Dragonese. Hodder & Stoughton. Copyright page. ISBN: 9780340999097.
- How to Train Your Dragon: How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse. Hodder Children’s Books. Copyright page. ISBN: 9780340999103.
- How to Train Your Dragon: How to Twist a Dragon’s Tale. Hodder & Stoughton. Copyright page. ISBN: 9780340999110.
- How to Train Your Dragon: A Hero’s Guide to Deadly Dragons. Hodder & Stoughton. Copyright page. ISBN: 9780340999134.
- How to Train Your Dragon: How to Ride a Dragon’s Storm. Hodder Children’s Books. Copyright page. ISBN: 9780340999127.
- How to Train Your Dragon: How to Break a Dragon’s Heart. Hodder Children’s Books. Copyright page. ISBN: 9780340996928.
- How to Train Your Dragon: How to Steal a Dragon’s Sword. Hodder & Stoughton. Copyright page. ISBN: 9781444900941.
- How to Train Your Dragon: How to Seize a Dragon’s Jewel: Book 10 by Cressida Cowell. Hachette Australia.
- How to Train Your Dragon: How to Betray a Dragon’s Hero: Book 11 by Cressida Cowell. Hachette Australia.
- How to Train Your Dragon: How to Fight a Dragon’s Fury: Book 12 by Cressida Cowell. Hachette Australia.
- How to be a Viking. Hodder Children’s Books. ISBN: 9781444921366.
- The Day of the Dreader. Hodder Children’s Books. ISBN: 9781444907735.
- Incomplete Book of Dragons. Hodder Children’s Books. ISBN: 9781444914016.
- A Journal for Heroes. Hodder Children’s Books. ISBN: 9781444923162.
- The How To Train Your Dragon Short Story Collection. Hodder Children’s Books. ISBN: 9781444977462.
- How To Train Your Dragon: Dragon Tales Collection. Hodder Children’s Books. ISBN: 9781444979923.
- How to be a Viking. Hodder Children’s Books. Copyright page. ISBN: 9781444921366.
- How to Train Your Dragon: The Day of the Dreader. Hodder Children’s Books. Copyright page. ISBN: 9781444907735.
- The Complete Book of Dragons by Cressida Cowell. Hachette Book Group.
- How to Train Your Dragon: Incomplete Book of Dragons by Cressida Cowell. Cressida Cowell.
- How to Train Your Dragon: Incomplete Book of Dragons by Cressida Cowell. Hachette UK.
- How to Train Your Dragon: Incomplete Book of Dragons by Cressida Cowell. Hachette Australia.
- How to Train Your Dragon: A Journal for Heroes by Cressida Cowell. Hachette UK.
- The How To Train Your Dragon Short Story Collection by Cressida Cowell. Hachette UK.
- How To Train Your Dragon: Dragon Tales Collection: Three unmissable short stories in one! by Cressida Cowell. Hachette Australia.
- How To Train Your Viking by Toothless the Dragon by Cressida Cowell. Hachette UK.
- How To Train Your Viking by Toothless the Dragon by Cressida Cowell. Hachette Australia.
- How to Train Your Hogfly by Cressida Cowell. Hachette UK.
- How to Train Your Hogfly by Cressida Cowell. Hachette Australia.
- How to Train Your Viking. Hodder Children’s Books. ISBN: 9780340917466.
- How to Train Your Hogfly. Hodder Children’s Books. ISBN: 9781444977332.
- How to Train Your Dragon School: Doom of the Darkwing. Hachette Book Group.
- How To Train Your Dragon School: Fight of the Flamestrike. Hachette Book Group.
- How To Train Your Dragon School. Hachette Book Group.