In an email interview, the writer and illustrator explained why she’s tailored the new book, “Doom of the Darkwing,” to visually sophisticated children. SCOTT HELLER
Can a great book be badly written? What other criteria can overcome bad prose?
Reading is like eating, you can have a varied diet and enjoy it all. And “great” is of course subjective. But a book that stands the test of time is usually one with the perfect words for its audience: “Middlemarch” and “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” are both exemplars of that in very different ways.
What’s the last great book you read?
“John & Paul,” by Ian Leslie, a fascinating account of the creative relationship between John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
What kind of reader were you as a child?
I spent all my summers on an island in Scotland with no television, and I read anything I could get my hands on. Ursula K. Le Guin’s “A Wizard of Earthsea,” anything by Diana Wynne Jones or Tolkien, the “Oz” books by L. Frank Baum, Lloyd Alexander’s “The Book of Three,” Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House on the Prairie” and Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women” were particular favorites.
Have you ever gotten in trouble for reading a book?
My mother didn’t like me reading Enid Blyton books because she thought they were badly written. I took them all out of the library and read them anyway.
What books are on your night stand?
“Is a River Alive?,” by Robert Macfarlane; “In Writing,” by Hattie Crisell; “Big Magic,” by Elizabeth Gilbert; “Three Days in June,” by Anne Tyler; and lots of cookery books. I love reading a recipe book before bed.
How do you organize your books?
In my writing shed I have lots of research books, about nature or animals, that are helpful to my illustrations. In my sitting room I have hardbacks, lovely old copies with pretty jackets. In the bathroom I have paperbacks, because it’s a tough old life being read in the bath. In my bedroom I have whatever I am reading at the time, and books I want to read in the future, and cookery books (see above).
Did you ever have second thoughts about naming the hero of “How to Train Your Dragon” Hiccup?
Absolutely not! A “hiccup” is another name for an “accident,” and what, of course, his father and his tribe come to realize is that Hiccup isn’t an accident at all, he is the best thing that ever happened to them. Hiccup is a hero who solves problems with his intelligence, his creativity and his empathy, rather than his fists.
Why return to this series with a new book 10 years after the last one?
So many young adults in my signing queues now say that the movies introduced them to the books, and that “How to Train Your Dragon” was the book that got them into reading. So with the spinoff series I am providing an entry point that is even more visual. It is set between books 6 and 7, where Hiccup already has his riding dragon, so it is more closely linked with the action in the movie.
What new thinking did you bring to the material more than 20 years after publishing the first book?
The average age of a child getting a smartphone in the U.K. is now 9 years old. Children are more visual than ever, and we are competing for their time with some of the best screen, television, internet, ever. So this new material is presented in a particularly visual format, with even more world-building illustrations. But children are highly intelligent, so I never dumb down. I hook them in with humor and action and cliffhangers, while simultaneously using lovely language and interesting ideas.
The books have inspired a section of a theme park in Orlando. Were you a theme park-goer before visiting this one?
No! But I loved it, particularly meeting Hiccup and Toothless, and the stage show. As a child who grew up longing to meet a dragon, it was very moving to think how much pleasure this theme park was going to give children and families in the future.
How do you sign books for your fans?
While chatting. I am so touched by how long children and families are prepared to wait in order to meet their favorite author.
You’re organizing a dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?
Shakespeare, George Eliot and Homer, if such a person ever existed (it’s a bit contentious, that one). You have to invite the dead ones. Although one of the many wonderful things about reading is that this is what you are already doing. You are having a dinner party with people who died, sometimes hundreds or even thousands of years ago, and whose voices and feelings and intelligence and opinions are all captured in the extraordinarily brilliant and irreplaceable technology that is a book. Now that really is magic.
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