Publication Order of How to Train Your Dragon Books
How to Train Your Dragon
2003
How to Be a Pirate
2004
How to Speak Dragonese
2005
How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse
2006
How to Twist a Dragon’s Tale
2007
A Hero’s Guide to Deadly Dragons
2007
How to Ride a Dragon’s Storm
2008
How to Break a Dragon’s Heart
2009
How to Steal a Dragon’s Sword
2011
How to Seize a Dragon’s Jewel
2012
How to Betray a Dragon’s Hero
2013
How to Fight a Dragon’s Fury
2015
Publication Order of How to Train Your Dragon School Books
Doom of the Darkwing
2025
Fight of the Flamestrike
2026
Publication Order of How to Train Your Dragon Companion Books
How to Train Your Viking
2006
The Day of the Dreader
2012
The Incomplete Book of Dragons / The Complete Book of Dragons
2014
Publication Order of The Wizards of Once Books
The Wizards of Once
2017
Twice Magic
2018
Knock Three Times
2019
Never and Forever
2020
Publication Order of Which Way to Anywhere Books
Which Way to Anywhere
2022
Which Way Round the Galaxy
2023
Which Way to the Future
2025
Publication Order of Emily Brown Books
That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown
2006
Emily Brown and the Thing
2007
Emily Brown and the Elephant Emergency
2009
Cheer Up Your Teddy Bear, Emily Brown!
2011
Emily Brown and Father Christmas
2018
Emily Brown and the Not-Very-Spooky Halloween
2025
Publication Order of Children’s Books
Little Wonder
1998
Little Bo Peep’s Library Book
1999
Don’t Do That, Kitty Kilroy!
1999
Hiccup the Viking Who Was Seasick / Hiccup the Seasick Viking
1999
What Shall We Do with the Boo-Hoo Baby?
2000
One Too Many Tigers
2001
Claydon Was a Clingy Child
2001
Super Sue
2003
Daddy on the Moon
2005
Super Sue at Super School
2005
There’s No Such Thing as a Ghostie!
2005
Little Bo Peep’s Troublesome Sheep
2009
The Story of Tantrum O’Furrily
2018
About Cressida Cowell
Cressida Cowell is a British children’s author and illustrator, best known for the “How to Train Your Dragon” series, which became a DreamWorks Animation film franchise. She also wrote “The Wizards of Once” and “Which Way to Anywhere” series and the Emily Brown picture books, and was the Waterstones Children’s Laureate from 2019 to 2022.
Cowell was born in London on 15 April 1966. She grew up in London and spent childhood summers on a small, uninhabited island off the west coast of Scotland, where there was no electricity, telephone or television and she passed the time drawing and writing stories. She studied English at Keble College, Oxford, and illustration at Saint Martin’s School of Art and Brighton University. Her first books were picture books, among them “Hiccup the Viking Who Was Seasick”, which introduced the character she later built a series around.
“How to Train Your Dragon” (2003) follows Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, a small Viking boy who is heir to the chief of the Hairy Hooligan tribe, and his dragon Toothless. Cowell has said the island of her childhood, once home to Vikings, inspired the setting. The series ran to twelve novels, ending with “How to Fight a Dragon’s Fury” in 2015, and her publisher says it has sold over 11 million copies in 38 languages. DreamWorks released a loosely adapted animated film in 2010, sequels in 2014 and 2019, and a live-action remake in 2025. The audiobooks are narrated by David Tennant.
With the illustrator Neal Layton she created the Emily Brown picture books. The first, “That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown” (2006), won the Nestlé Children’s Book Prize Gold Award. “The Wizards of Once” (2017), about a young wizard and a warrior princess from enemy tribes, won the Blue Peter Book Award for Best Story in 2018 and was followed by three sequels. The “Which Way to Anywhere” trilogy (2022 to 2025) is about children who can travel to other worlds.
Cowell was appointed MBE in 2020 for services to children’s literature and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2021. In 2025 she returned to Hiccup with “How to Train Your Dragon School”, a spin-off for younger readers set between the sixth and seventh novels. Its second book, “Fight of the Flamestrike”, was published in June 2026. She lives in London.
