I am very drawn to the distant past, partly because when it’s the dark ages I can make up what we don’t know! In the evening, Cressida’s father read the children tales of the Vikings, who had invaded this island Archipelago over half a millennium before, of the quarrelsome Tribes who fought and tricked each other, and of legendary dragons who were supposed to live in the caves in the cliffs. So four hundred years of that part of the world is filled with Viking stories and Viking history and my interest descended from there.

We’ve got a lot of Roman history here: Hadrian’s Wall, Fishbourne Palace… I encourage you to take your children. The name of the island is a secret, but it was such a small island it wasn’t really big enough to have a name at all.Will you find the ingredients for the Spell to get rid of Witches and uncover the location of the Cup of Second Chances? Her art, too, is funny -- including pages from a book of spells and scribbled-in text that comments wryly on the action. It introduces us to a new fantasy world, though its roots again lie deep in a familiar mulch of history and legend. Wish is a Warrior girl, but she owns a banned Magical Object, and she will do anything to conceal it. The story never flags, even at moments of calm and reflection, and the writing has humour, grit and depth.

Best-selling Cressida Cowell launches her new series with a title that will delight all fans of the How to Train Your Dragon series.Without ever losing the qualities that have made her books so deservedly popular, very gently (and cleverly) Cressida Cowell leads her young readers into something deeper, something richer, something even more magical. All of Britain is covered in extraordinary history: thousands and thousands of years of people living in our incredible landscape.

There's plenty of magic in Cowell's wild woods and it rises from the pages fresh and clear and with fizzling energy. The Wizards of Once is a fabulously imaginative, funny and unpredictable adventure that will leave readers desperate for the next instalment. I was very careful to make the witches both male and female because I don’t approve of how witches are often made out to be only female! Cowell attended Keble College, Oxford where she studied English, and she also attended Saint Martin's School of Art and Brighton University where she learned illustration.

Every year, Cressida’s family spent four weeks of the summer, and two weeks of the spring, on the island. Some of the character names have an improvisatory feel -- there are sprites named Squeezjoos, Hinkypunk, and Mustardthought -- adding to the book's giggly charm. It brings together every adventure Hiccup and his friends have had, as well as reintroducing old characters and tying up loose ends.