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Cressida Cowell's How to Be a Pirate is the second Hiccup book, a funny and slightly spooky treasure hunt for 9 year olds that begins when a coffin floats up out of a storm.
Hiccup is now on Gobber the Belch's Pirate Training Programme. Lesson one is Swordfighting at Sea, in a howling gale. Hiccup volunteers to fight Dogsbreath the Duhbrain, because he's sure swordfighting runs in his family. (It doesn't, or not yet anyway.)
It goes very badly. Then the ship hits something in the water and splits clean in two. That something is a huge floating coffin, and the lid says DO NOT OPEN. It belongs to Grimbeard the Ghastly, the most famous pirate in Hooligan history and Hiccup's own great-great-grandfather.
So of course the whole Tribe votes to open it. Would YOU open a coffin with a curse carved on the lid? Hiccup wouldn't.
What climbs out is a charming stranger called Alvin, who has an iron claw where his hand should be. He's got a map and a riddle that lead to Grimbeard's lost treasure. Only the true heir can find it, with a dragon to sniff it out. Before long Hiccup's dad is planning a trip to the one island nobody has ever come back from alive.
Toothless steals the show again. He's sulky and greedy, and he bites Dogsbreath on the bottom at exactly the right moment. His treasure-sniffing practice turns up a turnip and a broken spoon. Every stammering line he says in Dragonese is a joy.
Your reader will be giggling at Hiccup's terrible swordfighting, the narrator's footnotes and Snotlout's insults. Hiccup is still the boy everyone laughs at, and you'll be very much on his side.
The coffin scene has a "corpse" that suddenly sits up (it isn't one, but it's a jump), and Hiccup explains that Skullion dragons cut their prey's heels and then eat them alive. There's also a short, sad scene where something lurking deep in the caves catches a lost baby dragon. A child who gets upset when animals are hurt may want a heads-up about that one. For a reader who likes their adventures with a bit of a shiver, it's great fun.
It's the second book, so if your reader hasn't met Hiccup yet, start with How to Train Your Dragon.
If they've fallen for a small, naughty dragon who's more trouble than he's worth, try The Boy Who Grew Dragons. Tomas brings home a strange glowing fruit from the end of Grandad's garden, and what hatches is a tiny dragon who hiccups out smoke rings.
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