‘I really empathise with children who feel they don’t fit in.’

Cressida Cowell, author of How to Train Your Dragon, on her childhood struggles and the crisis in literacy. By Claire Allfree

Ihave met Cressida Cowell for lunch, ostensibly to talk about her new children's book, Which Way to Anywhere, the first in a magical new series, but she is much more interested in talking about the parlous state of children's libraries. ‘Did you know that only one in eight primary schools has a library?' she tells me. ‘That if you are a child on free school meals you are twice as likely not to have access to a library at all? That the biggest factor in a child's future economic success, regardless of their socioeconomic background, is reading for pleasure and parental engagement in their education?' She pauses for breath. ‘All you can do is put the case.'

Cowell, 56, is extremely good at putting the case. She has the indefatigable, allweather enthusiasm of a school hockey teacher. She is, of course, the best-selling author of How to Train Your Dragon – the terrific 12-part series about a reluctant young Viking, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, trying his best to be brave as he struggles to become a hero. The books, published between 2003 and 2015, have been made into three films and have sold more than 11 million copies.

She has also written four Wizards of Once books, the four-part Emily Brown picturebook series and several stand-alones for younger readers. Yet, from the beginning of her career, in 1998, with the picture book Little Bo Peep’s Library Book, she has been motivated by the desire to encourage more children to read. Proof of her success in this area comes halfway through our lunch when our waiter shyly sidles up and says how much her books meant to him as a child. Cowell, quite overcome, offers him a selfie. We talk about television, the rise of streaming giants, video games...

‘Goodness,' she suddenly says, looking at her watch. ‘We must talk about the book.

Otherwise I will be in big trouble.'

Indeed, the new book. It's a pretty personal one for her: she wrote it during lockdown following the death of her father, the hereditary peer and environmentalist Michael Blakenham, in 2018, and it's partly about two siblings searching for their dad, who has been missing for years. But it's also about families forced to live with each other - in this instance, two sets of step-siblings who hate one another, each of whom is unaware they have a special gift.

There is a not very bright little robot, an ambiguous, mysterious narrator figure, an evil villain masquerading as a geography teacher, lots of jumping between worlds and some exquisite descriptions of a distant planet overrun by trees. Like all of Cowell's books, though, it first began in her imagination as a place. ‘Before Robert Louis Stevenson thought of the idea for Treasure Island, he drew the map. And as he drew it the pirates came creeping out of it. I've always loved that story. I always start my books by drawing a map. They are a way of making a world feel real.'

The map she drew for How to Train Your Dragon (which is included at the start of each book) is based on a real island. Cowell's father had ‘a passion for the wilderness' and in the 1970s would take his family to an uninhabited Hebridean isle for the summer; before they built a small stone house when Cowell was eight, the family would camp.

She spent most of the time roaming the ancient Viking caves and devouring books – Anne of Green Gables, Noel Streatfeild, Pippi Longstocking – and, as the eldest, would entertain her two siblings.

‘There was nothing else to do. I mean, there wasn't much to do in the 1970s anyway, but definitely not on a remote island without a TV. So I would read to them from books. And by getting everyone interested in what came next, I was rehearsing what I became, a storyteller.'

Yet back in London, where the family lived for most of the year, she didn't fit in at school. ‘I was terribly disorganised. I was always in trouble. I couldn't get my homework in on time, things like that. It made me very sad.' Somehow she got to Oxford, where she read English; afterwards, she studied fine art (she illustrates many of her books herself). She now lives in west London with her husband, Simon, and their three university-age children. But she never forgot the child she used to be. ‘I really empathise with children who struggle or feel they don't fit in. Hiccup feels like that.'

She tends to write action-packed adventure stories, as she sees herself mainly in competition with TV. ‘Yet I hope my books offer moments of stillness, too. Sometimes, children need quieter stories.'

We're back on to her favourite subject, which is essentially what she sees as the devaluing of literature and the arts in general across education. The situation is undeniably critical, with fewer students opting to study English literature each year at university. The planet needs creative thinkers, she says. ‘It's crucial we encourage creative thinking in children, because we're going to need [them] to solve all the problems the world faces ahead.'

Turn the page to read the review of Which Way to Anywhere

She tends to write action-packed adventure stories, as she sees herself mainly in competition with TV.