Refreshingly familiar
Cressida Cowell is one of our most popular children’s authors, with a huge international reputation, yet her books stand head and shoulders above many other mega bestsellers. In fact, never mind head and shoulders, I would say she tops them by everything from the knees upwards. That is because she has a very special and particular genius. She provides wonderfully high quality literature almost by stealth. She is a giver of some of the finest and most important gifts a writer can impart to young readers, yet she does not thrust them down reluctant throats, rather she coats them in the most delicious, fizzing confection.
From the outset of her writing career (How to Train Your Dragon in 2003) she has produced hugely kid-pleasing books, a mixture of zany comedy and wild adventure, threaded through with (her own) delightfully anarchic drawings. She has successfully repeated this winning approach through numerous sequels and a magnificent new series (The Wizards of Once) without it ever becoming formulaic. And now she has done it again with Which Way To Anywhere, which is simultaneously as familiarly delicious as fish and chips and as freshly crisp as a summer salad.
Clandestine quality
It is, in itself, a remarkable achievement, yet it is not in this that her greatest genius lies. Rather it is in sneaking under the radar of this uber-kidilicious frenzy, real quality literature; presenting features of which many young readers may scarcely even be aware, but which will nevertheless have a profound and lasting effect in their development as readers (and perhaps writers too). What she adds to glorious entertainment is true quality in terms of evocative language, sophisticated story structure and richly meaningful content.
The way she tells it
Cressida Cowell is not afraid to slip into her highly readable prose, challenging vocabulary and insightful idioms. The result is a hugely enriched reading experience. Young readers absorb the communicative potential,of written English whilst rollicking along with her hugely diverting narrative.
‘ . . . one long curling python of a vine whipped out languorously and tripped K2 up.’ (p 13)’
The narrative itself could, I suppose, (if you were possessed of a certain pretentiousness) be called a post-modern metatext, in mixed media. It has a framing narration provided by ‘the storymaker’, who is not simply a character in the embedded tale (it would be a terrible spoiler to say who), nor even just the masked presence of the author, but also the voice of story itself, heightening children’s awareness of the potency of storytelling at the same time as introducing them to something of the rich diversity of fictional form.
Her delightfully drawn characters (drawn in both the verbal and the graphic sense) are rather more contemporary and ‘real’ than in her previous books. That is, they come from Planet Earth, or at least start off there.Whilst in no way lacking in magic or, indeed, in outlandishly speculative adventure, they share with her earlier creations a deep grounding in genuine human feelings and relationships. This tale in particular not only poses the question of who might (or might not) be a hero, but also explores meaningfully sibling and other family relationships (be they created by blood or by circumstance). And it does so with ultimate positivity, without offering unrealistically perfect resolutions.
In the end, ‘The friendly old house in the middle of that boggy little part of Planet Earth was only just a little bit less messy and falling-down and unsatisfactory than it ever was or had been, . . . And everyone had made promises that they would find hard to keep.’ (p 438)
Cressida Cowell’s writing and drawing are just as full of humanity as they are zanily imaginative and wildly entertaining, whilst her very considerable skill as a novelist underpins everything. Were I still a teacher, I would be delighted to find any child in my care reading this, or any of her other books, knowing that they will be gently absorbing much of true quality at the same time as they are being royally entertained. Thankfully there is more of this new series yet to come.
