A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons recap

On his birthday, Hiccup must face another stage of Gobber's Pirate Training Programme while also dealing with a book that has to go back to the forbidden Meathead Public Library. Hiccup, Fishlegs, Camicazi and Toothless break into the library, where books are guarded as dangerous treasures by the Hairy Scary Librarian and his dragons. Moving through traps, shelves and tunnels, Hiccup discovers that the knowledge kept there matters more than the rules meant to hide it. The Librarian hunts the children, and Driller-Dragons make the stone building itself unsafe. Hiccup escapes with his friends and saves the information he needs. He survives his birthday test without becoming the conventional hero his teachers expect, and his observations become part of his own guide to deadly dragons.

Previously: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III is the unlikely heir of the Hairy Hooligans. He is small, a poor fighter and much happier thinking than shouting, but he can secretly speak Dragonese. His dragon Toothless is tiny and disobedient; his closest friends are Fishlegs and Camicazi. Hiccup has saved Berk from giant sea dragons, Roman schemes, Alvin the Treacherous and a volcanic disaster. The last adventure also brought the famous Humungously Hotshot back to Tantrum O'Ugerly. Hiccup's tribe still expects its future chief to look like an ordinary Viking hero, while Hiccup keeps proving that knowledge and sympathy can be braver than an axe.

Hiccup's birthday arrives with very little peace or celebration. Gobber's Pirate Training Programme still expects him to pass dangerous tests designed for a much larger and louder boy, and Snotlout is ready to enjoy his failure. At the same time, a book connected with the Meathead Public Library has become Hiccup's responsibility. Books are not treated as harmless in this part of the Viking world, and the library is forbidden, heavily protected and run by a librarian whose punishments are legendary. Returning the book without being caught will require a different sort of test from the one Gobber has planned.

Hiccup enters the Meathead Public Library with Fishlegs, Camicazi and Toothless. The library is a maze of guarded shelves, locked passages and traps, with the Hairy Scary Librarian ready to punish intruders. Camicazi's skill with locks gets the children farther than Viking force could have done. Hiccup is drawn to the dragon knowledge hidden in the collection, but there is no time for quiet reading: Driller-Dragons can tunnel through the building and reach places that appear safe. The attempt to put one book right becomes a struggle to escape with both the children and important knowledge intact.

The Librarian closes in as the children move deeper through the library. Hiccup learns that the books contain observations about dragons that his tribe has forgotten or refuses to consider. He cannot simply abandon that knowledge, even though Toothless and the Driller-Dragons keep making the escape more difficult. Outside the library, the demands of his pirate training have not disappeared, so Hiccup must solve two problems at once: get his friends out of a place designed to hold intruders and still face the test waiting for him among the Hooligans.

Hiccup, Fishlegs, Camicazi and Toothless escape the Meathead Public Library after outwitting the Hairy Scary Librarian and surviving the dragons that guard it. Hiccup preserves the useful dragon lore he has found rather than allowing fear and strict rules to bury it. He also comes through the Viking testing attached to his birthday, not because he suddenly becomes stronger than Snotlout, but because he notices, learns and acts under pressure. The adventure feeds into Hiccup's own work of recording dragon species and their dangers. His guide becomes evidence that understanding dragons is a form of heroism, even if Gobber's lessons do not have a mark for it.

Hiccup, Fishlegs and Camicazi escape the Meathead Public Library with Toothless after surviving the Hairy Scary Librarian, his traps and the dragons that guard the collection. Hiccup saves knowledge that the librarian's rules would have kept locked away or destroyed, and the adventure gives him the understanding he needs to finish his own guide to dragons. He also makes it through the Viking testing surrounding his birthday, although not by turning into the large and violent hero the programme was designed to reward. The result is another victory for Hiccup's curiosity: books, careful observation and his ability to speak to dragons prove more useful than treating either books or dragons as enemies. He returns to his place among the Hooligans with his friends safe and with a growing written record of what he has learned about dragonkind.