“Attention spans are changing. It's very noticeable. I am very aware that the kind of books I read in my childhood kids now won't be able to read. I was reading Kipling and PG Wodehouse and Shakespeare at the age of 11. The kind of description and detail I read I would not put in my books. I don't know how much you can fight that because you want children to read. So I pack in excitement and plot and illustrations and have a cliffhanger every chapter. Charles Dickens was doing cliffhangers way back when. But even with all the excitement you have to make children care about the characters.” KnowsWayWantKindChildrenBookCharacterCareKidsAgeAbleFightingReadingAttentionKnow HowChildhoodDetailsExcitementDescriptionPlotChaptersPacksBack WhenIllustrationDickensAttention SpanChild CareCliffhangerKiplingWay Back When Author:Cressida Cowell
“I was not a natural. . . . This is the story of becoming . . . the Hard Way.” WayHardStoriesNaturalBecomingHard Way Author:Cressida Cowell
“Oh, for Thor's sake..." said Hiccup. "I thought that was just a story..." "Stories come from somewhere," said the witch. "The past haunts the present in more ways than we realise.” WaySaidStoriesPastSakeRealisingWitchHiccups Author:Cressida Cowell
“The past haunts the present in more ways than we think. It certainly scares the living daylights out of ME"~ Old Wrinkly” ThinkingWayPastFearScareDaylight Author:Cressida Cowell
“The dragons I would write about would not be the rather generalized, big, green things that I had read about in storybooks. What I wanted to create was a multiplicity of different dragon species, of all shapes and sizes, adapted to their environment and habitats in the same way as birds or other animals we see today.” WayWritingDifferentBigsTodayWantedAnimalEnvironmentShapesBirdGreenSpeciesSizeDragonsAdaptedMultiplicityHabitatGreen Things Author:Cressida Cowell
