Rating: No Rating
So Eleanor and I love Love LOVE How to Train Your Dragon. Her fifth birthday last summer was dragon-themed, complete with a custom-made cake from the best bakery in the country, and do you know how hard it was to find Dragon decorations and party favors, seeing as how the third movie did not even come out until THIS YEAR?! It was rough. And pricey. (And when we did see the third movie, I ain't one bit ashamed to say I CRIED at the end. Straight up cried.)
Anyway.
At least...we love the movies and shows. We saw those first, and so reading the books has been a bit strange because they are so vastly different. We are slowly working our way through book one, and Eleanor picked this one out at some point in one of the binges where I randomly let her choose $25 worth of books from our Amazon shopping cart.
The artwork is fine and the material is fine, it is just so different. I suppose we would feel the opposite if we had read the books first, but we didn't, so here we are. Eleanor sometimes gets confused when something from the book is different than what we have seen in the movie, so she is unsure which is "right". I tell her that the books came first, but that she can prefer whichever she likes, and she seems pretty content with the movie and show versions. As she gets older I do not doubt, however, that we will continue reading our way through the series. After all, they've already announced that Dragons 3 would be the final installment (don't even get me started, I might cry again), so at least with the books we can continue with characters we know and love, albeit a tad differently than we are used to.
Truthfully, this is a solid ⭐⭐⭐⭐ and any fan of the book series will enjoy it.
I've never read the books or seen the films but the dragons look cute!
ReplyDeleteThe movies are so, so good. And they ended up doing three different tv series, which were also well-done. Race to the Edge is the first series we saw on Netflix and it got us hooked. It's still obviously a ids' show, but it is funny and intelligent and I love watching it too. It was also cool to see how the characters 'grew up', so to speak.
DeleteThese books were huge sellers when I worked at a bookstore specializing in children's books. Even before the movies they flew off the shelves. I always meant to read one or two. I loved the Dragon Riders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey and have felt affection for dragons ever since. I have not seen the movies yet either. That is interesting how your daughter spotted the differences.
ReplyDeleteI think we will end up giving the series a try, because we do love the characters so much. And yes, it is almost scary how many differences she comments on. But some are so, so obvious also. I highly recommend the entire animated offering, all the movies and various series and specials. They're so well done, I could probably sit and watch them even if Eleanor wasn't home!
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