Tell us about your new book, How to Train Your Dragon School: Fight of the Flamestrike.
This is the second book in my new How To Train Your Dragon School adventures, which follow Hiccup and his dragons at the Isle of Berk’s Training School for Vikings and Dragons. A major purpose for me in writing books for children is getting them to read, and these visual, short adventures are hopefully a fun, easy way in.
Your books have sold more than 16 million copies worldwide in 46 languages, and the DreamWorks film franchise inspired by them has made $1.5 billion at the box office. What does success feel like?
It’s extraordinary, humbling. The best moments are when people tell me that the Dragon books got them through a difficult time, that they were a friend when friends weren’t around.
Your father was a confident but incompetent sailor, who inspired your characters Hiccup and his father Stoick, and his tales of Vikings and dragons fuelled your imagination.
My father was a very confident sailor but he didn’t really know what he was doing. There was something glorious about the dignified way he barked out orders while heading us straight into a Force Eight gale, or hitting a rock, or accidentally tying the boat to a lobster pot instead of a buoy.
Your love of writing and illustrating was partly inspired by summers spent on a remote island off the west coast of Scotland?
My dad was a businessman and a keen environmentalist. Every summer from when I was a baby, he would take the family to this tiny, uninhabited island off the west coast of Scotland. The island had no roads, houses or electricity, and I used to imagine that there were dragons living in the caves in the cliffs. In the evenings, my father told us tales by candlelight of the Vikings who invaded this island archipelago 1200 years before, of the quarrelsome tribes who fought and tricked each other, and of the legends of dragons who were supposed to live in the caves in the cliffs.
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You’ve described the Hiccup series as ‘fantasy’ books pretending to be ‘history’ books, but you do a lot of research?
I do masses of research for all my books, it gives great ideas for stories and adds richness, which helps to make the imaginary bits of my stories feel real.
You clearly love wordplay. Tell us about inventing Dragonese.
I have always liked the idea of an animal you could talk to, hence creating the language Dragonese! There is no real formula but I try to see things in a different kind of way. I play around with word association, so things sound a lot like what they are describing – for example, a window is an air-square, or I might call a dog a dim-woof, which could be how a dragon views a dog. I try to make it logical so you can almost work it out, but also [that it] encourages the reader to play with the language.
Are dragons a little bit like dinosaurs in your imagination?
Dragons feel very real to me. Children and cultures around the world have been fascinated by them for centuries. There is something about dragons that really grips the imagination of children – the possibility that they could really exist and the idea that maybe we don’t know everything.
You are a writer and illustrator, but your Emily Brown books are illustrated by Neal Layton. How come?
Because Neal’s illustrations are brilliant! He really captures Emily as a young girl who is undaunted, who knows what she wants and knows what the important things are. We can all learn a lot from Emily.
Your best friend at school (Marlborough College) was Lauren Child, who wrote the Charlie and Lola and Clarice Bean books. Have you ever collaborated or shared ideas?
We haven’t collaborated, yet!
Which projects are you working on?
The next Dragon School book, set in a survival skills lesson taking place on a deserted island.
What is the best writing advice you have heard?
Read as much as you possibly can, as it gives you a feel for the way that stories can be told.
Who do you admire the most?
David Attenborough. Or Shakespeare. Or Homer.
You are supreme ruler for a day. Which law do you pass or abolish?
I would pass more laws protecting nature, our remaining wildernesses, our rivers and our seas. And urgently improve the way that animals are treated in farms.
Which current book, film and podcast would you recommend?
Book – John and Paul – A Love Story in Songs, by Ian Leslie. Film – for young adults, Heartstopper Forever. Podcast – I’m really enjoying Journey Through the Odyssey with Mary Beard and Charlotte Higgins.
Which public event affected you most?
I’m not sure you can top walking the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival and receiving a standing ovation for the How To Train Your Dragon movie. That was a moment.
The most remarkable place you have visited?
Last year I visited the rugged little island of Ithaca, in advance of the new Christopher Nolan movie, Odyssey. It was truly astonishing to stand looking out to see the ruins of what is thought to be Odysseus’s palace, where generations of pilgrims have travelled to pay homage to this truly extraordinary twisty-turn of a story.
Your most treasured possession?
My sketchbooks, which are irreplaceable and represent thousands of hours of work.
What is the most beautiful book that you own?
The Ogre Downstairs by Dianna Wynne Jones. It’s the reason I wanted to become an author.
Which writers, living or dead, would you invite to your dream dinner party?
Shakespeare, George Eliot, Lizzie Bennett, David Attenborough, my grandfather Alan, and my husband wants to invite Queenie from Blackadder, but I think I won’t sit her next to George Eliot. They might not get on.
The best and worst things about where you live (in west London)?
I love London. The variety and vivacity of people, the theatres, the art galleries, the rivers and parks.
What is your favourite quotation?
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb in his skin and walk around in it.” – To Kill a Mockingbird.
Who is your favourite fictional character?
I love wise, gentle characters, so Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird, or the Warden from Anthony Trollope’s The Warden.
A book to make me laugh?
The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow.
[ How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World – A franchise we’re going to missOpens in new window ]
A book that might move me to tears?
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown. Still crying.
How to Train Your Dragon School: Fight of the Flamestrike is out now (Hachette Children’s)
