Cressida Cowell
The How to Train Your Dragon author is back with the second Wizards of Once novel
What is e Wizards of
Once: Twice Magic about? e Wizards of Once happens in a time when magic existed. It’s set in a land split in two: the Warrior Empire, and the Wildwoods where the Wizards live. Xar is a Wizard boy who has no Magic, and will do anything to get it. Wish is a Warrior girl, but she owns a banned Magical Object, and she will do anything to conceal it. ey’ve been brought up from birth to hate each other like poison, but when they encounter each other in the rst Wizards book, they’re forced into seeing the world from each other’s point of view. e Wizards of Once: Twice Magic begins with Xar imprisoned in the terrifying prison of Gormincrag, and Wish locked in the Punishment Cupboard inside the Warrior Fort. Wish is in possession of a powerful, Magic Spelling Book; Xar has a dangerous Witchstain on his hand. ey need to save the Wildwoods from the curse of the Witches but they are separated by the highest wall imaginable, and time is running out.
Given that How to Train Your Dragon was a series of 12 books, did you think (or perhaps dread) that e Wizards of Once could become as big a part of your writing life?
I have fallen in love with the world now, so I would never dread more books, but I don’t think the series will be 12, because I have so many other ideas that I want to write…
Do the brilliant illustrations or the words come rst, or do they happen at the same time?
I had sketchbooks lled with ideas for the world, and at that stage the words and illustrations happened simultaneously. When I get down to writing the books in earnest, I mostly write with some illustration, and then nish o the illustrations at the end.
You are an advocate for children’s literacy – is the healthy state of children’s publishing good news?
I am heartened by the number of truly wonderful books being written. I do worry, though, that with the focus in schools on exams we aren’t encouraging kids. I have an initiative called Free Writing Friday with the National Literacy Trust in the UK to encourage schools and parents to give children 15 minutes a week to write and draw in a notebook that nobody corrects. We need to inspire children – of every background – to believe they can be an author or illustrator.
Children spend so much of their time indoors – are they in danger of losing a connection with the natural world?
One of the major themes of e Wizards of Once is the importance of children interacting with nature in a ‘wild’ way, and of looking a er the natural world around us. It troubles me that children have so much less unsupervised access to the countryside, and what that might mean for their future creativity and for their relationship with the natural world. It worries me that the Junior Oxford English Dictionary has been losing words to describe the outside – if we don’t have the language, then the connections will become even more lost…
When you meet your readers, do they surprise you with how deeply they think about the worlds you have created?
Never underestimate the intelligence of children! A er 20 years of events, I get new questions on every single book tour. Children think creatively and say what they think.
Do you think your experiences of summers spent on a small Scottish island have in uenced e Wizards of Once books?
Absolutely. I was writing on that island, age 9, about magic. A storm experienced in candlelight makes you feel very close to magical forces beyond human control…
As well as being fantasy, are your books also environmental works?
Yes. My dad was a passionate environmentalist which he instilled in me. Dragons represent wildness, and how our attempts to control it are o en misguided. In e Wizards of Once, the characters are integrally linked with their environment, especially the Wildwoods. e magic in the books is partly imagination, but it’s also the magic of the natural world around us.
Do your books have any lessons for kids?
Lesson isn’t quite the right word, but I want to inspire kids to ask questions. Can we in uence our own fate and the fate of our society? How can you see the world from someone else’s point of view? How should we look a er the natural world around us? What makes a good leader? (And I don’t present them with easy answers either, because there aren’t any easy answers out there.)