Reading order
How to Train Your Dragon reading order
- How to Train Your Dragon2003
- How to Be a Pirate2004
- How to Speak Dragonese2005
- How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse2006
- How to Twist a Dragon’s Tale2007
- A Hero’s Guide to Deadly Dragons2007
- How to Ride a Dragon's Storm2008
- How to Break a Dragon's Heart2009
- How to Steal a Dragon's Sword2011
- How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel2012
- How to Betray a Dragon's Hero2013
- How to Fight a Dragon's Fury2015
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2
3
4
5
7
8
9
10
11
12- 7.87.8 / 10495 ratings
- Score
- 12 volumes
- Volumes
- 2003–2015
- Published
- about 70 h
- Reading time
- Completed
- Status
- Fantasy#150
- Genre
Quick answer
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Publication order
12 volumes2003–2015Completed
- Read them in order: unlike most children's series of this size, this one is a single arc with a war at the end, and the last book pays off setups from the first.
- Be warned that the books and the films share little more than the names — Toothless here is a small, rude, largely useless dragon, and Hiccup's story is much darker than the screen version.
- A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons is book six and part of the story despite its guidebook title; the actual guidebook, The Incomplete Book of Dragons, is not.
A plan for the whole series
12 volumes, 3,696 pages, about 70 hours. At 45 min a day that is about 3 months.
Stages
4 stages, with 3 short books from outside the series between them. You finish around February 14, 2027, 17 days later than in one go.
- Stage 117 habout 3 weeksby November 21, 2026
- 1. How to Train Your Dragon
- 2. How to Be a Pirate
- 3. How to Speak Dragonese
- 4. How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse
- Short breakThe Fire Next Time · James Baldwin · 120 pp. · score 8.8
- Stage 215 h20 daysby December 15, 2026
- 5. How to Twist a Dragon’s Tale
- 6. A Hero’s Guide to Deadly Dragons
- 7. How to Ride a Dragon's Storm
- Short breakOn Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century · Timothy Snyder · 128 pp. · score 8.4
- Stage 319 habout 4 weeksby January 14, 2027
- 8. How to Break a Dragon's Heart
- 9. How to Steal a Dragon's Sword
- 10. How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel
- BreakMaus · Art Spiegelman · 295 pp. · score 9.0
- Stage 416 habout 3 weeksby February 14, 2027
- 11. How to Betray a Dragon's Hero
- 12. How to Fight a Dragon's Fury
- The end of the series
We count 1.1 min per page, the pace of an average novel reader. Faster? Move the slider.
≈ next to a page count: a volume with no page count in our data is counted at this series’s average.
How this plan is calculated
The plan comes from the pages and ratings of each volume: we split the series into stages of about three weeks’ reading, size each break to the stage before it, and read the chance of finishing from how many readers rate the last volume compared with the first. How we work out the plan →
Every volume in order
Order checked by hand · Order and years: Wikidata (CC0). Spotted an error? Tell us. · Data updated October 29, 2026
Extras, short stories and spin-offs
Not needed to follow the main story — read them after the series or skip them.
- How to Train Your Viking2006
- The Day of the Dreader2012
- The Incomplete Book of Dragons
Frequently asked questions
Which How to Train Your Dragon book is the longest?
“How to Fight a Dragon's Fury” is the longest at 472 pages; the shortest is “How to Be a Pirate” with 221 pages.
What should I read after How to Train Your Dragon?
After the main series: How to Train Your Viking, The Day of the Dreader, The Incomplete Book of Dragons.