Cressida Cowell is a multi-award-winning author and illustrator of several adventure fantasy books and a passionate advocate for all children to experience the magic of storytelling.
Cressida is most known for her How To Train Your Dragon series, which has sold over 11 million books worldwide in over 35 languages, as well as being created into a film franchise and TV series on Netflix and CBBC. Her other work includes The Wizards of Once and Which Way to Anywhere series, as well as the Emily Brown picture books illustrated by Neal Layton.
Cressida is an advocate for children’s reading and access to books, a strong theme that was part of her Waterstones Children’s Laureateship. She is an ambassador and trustee for several literacy charities and has won numerous prizes for her books.
Cressida grew up in London and on a small, uninhabited island off the west coast of Scotland, which inspired many of her books. She lives in London with her family.
Goals as Waterstones Children’s Laureate
When crowned the Children’s Laureate in 2019, Cressida set out her unveiled the Cressida Cowell Waterstones Children’s Laureate Charter, a ‘giant to-do list’.
The charter asserts that every child has the right to:
Read for the joy of it
Access NEW books in schools, libraries and bookshops
Have advice from a trained librarian or bookseller
Own their OWN book
See themselves reflected in a book
Be read aloud to
Have some choice in what they read
Be creative for at least 15 minutes a week
See an author event at least ONCE
Have a planet to read on
Throughout her Laureateship Cressida advocated that books and reading should be available to absolutely everyone, and this inspired Cressida’s main Laureate projects: Cressida Cowell’s Creativity Sumer Camp; #PassthePen; and Life-changing Libraries.
Wish is a girl from a warrior tribe and Xar is a boy from a wizard tribe, living in a world loosely based on Ancient Britain at the beginning of the Iron Age, but where magic is real. A fabulously imaginative, funny and unpredictable adventure.
This is a story about a family. There are five child characters: K2 and his twin sister Izzabird O’Hero, Theo and Mabel Smith and little Annipeck O’Hero-Smith. They are fairly ordinary children (although K2 and Izzabird have some odd magical relatives) living normal lives on Earth in the present day. The O’Hero mum and the Smith dad fell in love and got together to make a new family and none of the older siblings are very happy about it and don’t get on – although they all adore their mutual younger sister Annipeck.
Set on a wild and windy night, a stray cat called Tantrum O’Furrily is out and about with her three hungry kittens. Soon, they discover the power of stories and the courage they can give you. Cressida Cowell’s story reads like a heartwarming fairy tale.
