Cressida Cowell

BA English 1985
Honorary Fellow
Waterstone’s Children’s Laureate

International bestselling author and illustrator of the How To Train Your Dragon series, Cressida Cowell was crowned Waterstone’s Children’s Laureate in July 2019. She immediately unveiled her Laureate Charter, a ten-point to-do list which proclaims every child’s right to “own their own book”, “be read aloud to”, “have access to new books in schools, libraries and bookshops” and “be creative for at least fifteen minutes a week.”

She grew up in London, the daughter of the environmentalist and hereditary peer, Michael Blakenham. The family spent holidays on a tiny, remote and uninhabited island off the west coast of Scotland. Without the distraction of a television, Cressida and her siblings occupied themselves reading, writing and hunting for dragons.

After leaving Keble and a short stint in publishing she went to St Martin’s School of Art and then on to Brighton University and obtained an MA in Narrative Illustration. Her final project became her first book, Little Bo Peep’s Library Book, published in 1998. She spent the next five years writing picture books, including her first Hiccup story, The Viking Who Was Seasick, inspired by her childhood holidays in Scotland.

In 2003 the first of the How To Train Your Dragon books was published, with a new title each year for the next 12 years. The series has sold over 11 million books around the world in 38 languages and has been adapted into a multimillion dollar DreamWorks film series—the third film released earlier this year.

Her new book series, The Wizards of Once, is a number one bestseller and is currently being adapted for the screen by DreamWorks.

She says she has many happy memories of her years at Keble, particularly as it was here she started reading the Viking sagas that were later to become the inspiration for How To Train Your Dragon.