Why do you think the author gives us hints about the narrator's identity but never actually reveals it? Packed with Cowell's own quirkly illustrations, and as imaginative, funny and warm-hearted as the Dragon books, The Wizards of Once is a pacy, exciting read that's sure to herald another hit series. The story never flags, even at moments of calm and reflection, and the writing has humour, grit and depth. She was my history teacher in upper 4M and she set me a history essay task which was ‘imagine you see Vikings on the horizon’.

My top writing tip would be to read lots, to give you a feel for the way different stories can be told. Some of the character names have an improvisatory feel -- there are sprites named Squeezjoos, Hinkypunk, and Mustardthought -- adding to the book's giggly charm. This doesn’t need to be neat, and no one should be correcting it for spelling, because spelling doesn’t matter. I spent a great deal of time as a child on a tiny, uninhabited island off the west coast of Scotland. The final battle scenes are breathtaking, too - Cressida's imagination knows no bounds, and this is epic stuff!It brings together every adventure Hiccup and his friends have had, as well as reintroducing old characters and tying up loose ends. There's plenty of magic in Cowell's wild woods and it rises from the pages fresh and clear and with fizzling energy. From then on, every year we spent four weeks of the summer and two weeks of the spring on the island. The book is full of gorgeous illustrations by Cressida Cowell, which drag you into the magical world and pull you into Wish and Xar’s adventures. In the evening, Cressida’s father read the children tales of the Vikings, who had invaded this island Archipelago over half a millennium before, of the quarrelsome Tribes who fought and tricked each other, and of legendary dragons who were supposed to live in the caves in the cliffs.

On top of all that, there's real wisdom here about how adults need to take responsibility to sort out the world, which is timely in this era of children protesting against climate change. She provides her own illustrations, and their scratchy style and scribbled annotations strike the right note. This is the final instalment in the How to Train Your Dragon series and it packs an emotional punch. The 3D animated film from the studio that created Shrek, Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda, was directed by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois (the directors of Lilo and Stich) and produced by Bonnie Arnold (who produced Toy Story). I do think the extraordinary history that we have in these islands is part of why we have this very, very rich literary history.

The first volume of a new series by author and illustrator of the How to Train Your Dragon series is an event. I am very drawn to the distant past, partly because when it’s the dark ages I can make up what we don’t know!

Fans of fantasy will gobble up this series opener, with its crowd-pleasing formula mixing action and humor. When the two young protagonists sneak out of their respective royal residences and meet, their fates become intertwined. So four hundred years of that part of the world is filled with Viking stories and Viking history and my interest descended from there. Though both have parents who are disapproving, the kids follow their own lights and prove their mettle.And so I sort of mixed them all up together… the incredible wild woods, the stories about the giants and the fairies that were all made up by people who lived after the Iron Ages, and I put them all together into Wizards of Once. The sequel to the glorious The Wizards of Oncepicks up almost exactly where we left it– and it's just as thrilling, gorgeously written and illustrated.