WESLACO — Cressida Cowell took attendees of a reading and book signing event on a journey Wednesday. The destination: Her mind, where tales of dragons and swashbuckling heroes from a fabled land have transcended even her wildest fantasies.
WESLACO — Cressida Cowell took attendees of a reading and book signing event on a journey Wednesday. The destination: Her mind, where tales of dragons and swashbuckling heroes from a fabled land have transcended even her wildest fantasies.
A presentation from the acclaimed author and illustrator of the “How to Train Your Dragon” book series — novels that have inspired a popular movie trilogy — struck a chord with the families present at the Mayor Eugene Braught Theater, which is located at the Mayor Joe V. Sanchez Public Library in Weslaco.
The English author’s visit, in which she explained the genesis of the story and how she breathed life into its myth, was so well-received that children were visibly riveted by her storytelling.
“All writers do loads of research to make their words feel real,” Cowell said of the work she invested in creating the novels’ fictional world, in which Viking protagonist Hiccup befriends a dragon named Toothless. “Toothless the dragon is a mixture of a bird and a cat. …This makes the lie come alive in a reader or viewer’s head. So I built a whole world of dragons, of carnivorous dragons and really sweet dragons.”
The books were inspired by her childhood experiences on a small and otherwise uninhabited Hebridean island located off the west coast of Scotland. Every summer, her father would take the family on a 10-hour drive from their London home to Scotland, where a boatman would then take them to what she described as a tiny and remote destination.
Cowell said these excursions began when she was a baby. And by the time she was 9 years old, her dad, who actually owned the island, built a getaway home for the family.
The house, as she puts it, remains isolated and illuminated only by candlelight since there’s no electricity on the island. The only source of food is whatever’s brought there or fished from the waters.
“The notion of childcare in the 1970s — and people who grew up in the 70s would know this — was to open the front door, shove the kids out and say, ‘Bye kids, come back when you’re hungry,’” Cowell said to laughter. “‘Don’t run off a cliff,’ we’d say sometimes.”
She also recalled her little brother’s idea of diving consisting of carrying a large stone into the water so he could sink to the bottom, find crabs and release the stone to rise to the surface. These are experiences she said may not be totally lost on a generation raised with smartphones and social media, given that many children in attendance expressed interest in visiting such a place.
For Cowell, the area’s history was especially enthralling, given that her father told stories of Vikings who invaded Scotland centuries ago. Vikings, she said, believed in the existence of dragons — this coupled with the real creatures that inhabited the island helped shape the beginnings of what would become her most acclaimed work.
Another experience that influenced Cowell was the time her father caught a conger eel on the island, which she said appeared not unlike a dragon in the eyes of a child.
“I created a fantasy world of dragons in order for you to believe they exist,” she said while narrating a slideshow of family photos that captured these moments. “I did loads of research and put in loads of details …I took this blob fish and mixed it with this fish that’s transparent, and I got this huge, monstrous, strangulated dragon. So that’s the way I built it, with lots of research on real creatures. …Treating my fantasies as if it’s real — that’s very important.”
Upon showing footage of the first film’s trailer, Cowell admitted feeling moved whenever she witnesses people watch a movie that was based on her writings. The third movie in the trilogy is slated for a 2019 release.
Her trip to the Rio Grande Valley began Wednesday with her participation in the IDEA Public Schools end-of-year celebration at the McAllen Convention Center, where she delivered a presentation to nearly 3,000 students who were recognized as the district’s Royal Readers.
IDEA had initially reached out to Sarah Cuadra, owner of The Storybook Garden in Weslaco, to assist in bringing a renowned author to the Valley for the event. Cuadra said she drew from her network of publicists and authors in the literary industry to book Cowell for the celebration.
Bringing Cowell to the Mid-Valley occurred thanks in large part to Cuadra’s partnership with the library and in an effort to expose the local community to the writer.
