Sea Fare: How to Be a Viking by Cressida Cowell

LONG AGO IN A FIERCE AND FROSTY LAND, THERE LIVED A SMALL, LONELY VIKING AND HIS NAME WAS HICCUP

HICCUP WAS TINY AND THOUGHTFUL AND POLITE.

HE WAS FRIGHTENED OF SPIDERS--AND THUNDER--AND LOUD NOISES. BUT MOST OF ALL, HE WAS FRIGHTENED OF GOING TO SEA.

Hiccup clearly seems to lack the right stuff for a Viking lad. It doesn't help that his father, Stoik the Vast, is a rip-roaring marauder with bristling beard who fears neither wave nor wind.

Truth to tell, Stoik is a bit of a grown-up bully who scorns his son's fears with appropriately lusty boasts.

VIKINGS DON'T GET SEASICK!!!

Hiccup turns to his grandfather, Old Wrinkly, for help, but the old Viking just advises him to see what the sea is like for himself.

Going to sea is what Vikings do, and Hiccup's dad demands that he suck it up and board the boat.

At first things don't go well. In fact, Hiccup does what no Viking is supposed to do. As the ship plows through the stormy North Sea, little Hiccup gets seasick--turning green and heaving-over-the-side seasick!

Stoik the Vast is not at all pleased with his pasty-faced son--until .... a huge wave lifts their ship and twirls it around and around. Suddenly the impossible happens and Stoik is scared and starts to turn green. And when massive Vikings get mal de mer, they get mightily seasick!

There's nothing for it but for little Hiccup to take the helm and steer the longboat through the storm and back into their Nordic harbor, while Stoik and his yeomen lie around on the decking like beached whales. Hiccup sees many wonders of the sea--dolphins, flying fish, even narwhals--and discovers that he has the knack for being a Viking after all.

It's time to post a new motto over the longhouse--VIKINGS NEVER SOMETIMES GET SICK!, (but they get over it!) in Cressida Cowell's just published backstory of the little hero of her hit movie, How to Train Your Dragon, How to Be a Viking (Little, Brown and Company, 2014). With the sequel due to come out this summer, this is a good time to read how Hiccup becomes a Viking hero. Cowell's introduction tells how she created her little Viking character long ago and how her endearing little seafarer found his sea legs is a funny story of facing your fears (and pleasing and one-upping Dad) that kids will understand.