How Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third became a hero the hard way

Cressida Cowell is well on the way to becoming the new JK Rowling. Her books led by the “How to Train Your Dragon” series have sold more than 11 million copies and her net worth is reportedly US$15 million. Reviewers have described the Dragon series as “modern classics” and “one of the greatest inventions of modern children’s literature”. Dreamworks Animation made a film based on the Dragon books that was shown in Hong Kong earlier this year.

The characters in the 12 Dragon books include Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, a not very heroic Viking; Toothless, Hiccup’s disobedient little dragon; Snotlout, who’s top of the class at BashyBall, Advanced Rudery and Senseless Violence; DogsBreath the Duhbrain, Snotlout’s fellow bully; Fishlegs, Hiccup’s friend; and Stoik the Vast, Hiccup’s father and chief of the Hooligan Tribe.

Hiccup says,”There were dragons when I was a boy. Great, grim, sky dragons like gigantic scary birds…Little brown scuffly dragons… Preposterously huge Sea Dragons… I was not the sort of boy who could train a dragon by the mere lifting of an eyebrow. I was not a natural at the heroism business. I had to work at it. This is the story of becoming a Hero the Hard Way.”

Cressida Cowell, named Waterstone’s children’s laureate recently, said she has been writing about dragons since she was a child. She’s the daughter of Michael Hare, 2nd Viscount of Blakeham. Her family spent weeks when she was little on an isolated, uninhabited island off the west coast of Scotland. They were dropped off by a boatman who said he would return in two weeks. The family built a stone house that was candlelit. There was no TV, no internet, no computers. As a child Cressida wrote stories sitting in the tussocky island grass and illustrated them herself. Later she went to the University of Oxford, St Martins’ School of Art and Brighton University.

On accepting the Children’s Laureate role, Cowell said, “I have two super-simple key messages — Point number one: books and reading are magic. Point Two: this magic must be made urgently available to absolutely everyone.” On success as a children’s author, she said, “As every parent will know, even quite young children are able to understand complex concepts. I make a conscious effort never to talk down to them.”

What advice does she give youngsters who aspire to become writers: “My top writing tip would be to read lots, to give you a feel for ways different stories can be told. Also practice writing as much as you can — write, re-write — don’t worry if you don’t finish the story, as long as you are practising. That’s what matters.”

Cowell has also written four books in her Emily Brown series, six other books and has so far produced three in her new series, The Wizard of Once.