Erick Senethep
Mrs. Watson
British Literature 242—Section 102
Critical Biography
April 17, 2011
Knowing Cressida Cowell
Many authors fade without getting known and many others shine like the day is new. A lot of those authors get a movie made after their book and become more known throughout the world. Some of them get famous overnight like the famous author of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling. Cressida Cowell has written more books than J.K. Rowling, but she is not as famous as the Harry Potter author. Why has she not become large in the popular fiction world as quickly as J.K. Rowling did? Ever since the How to Train Your Dragon movie, her stories are beginning to pick up. Once again, she did not become as famous as J.K. Rowling did when the first movie of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone came out. Many factors could be a cause of Cowell’s slow progress to “super fame”. For example, her book length could be causing her to not become “super famous” another reason could be the content itself.
Cressida Cowell grew up on a small inhabited island on the west coast of Scotland. She became in tune with nature quickly because her and her family lived there where no one lived, and a boatman would come and pick them up every two weeks (Cowell). J.K. Rowling, on the other hand, grew up in Chepstow, Gwenth (Smith). J. K. Rowling has been busy all her life. Her father went off to join the royal navy and her mother joined the WRNS (Women’s Royal Navy Service) (Rowling). They both lived two different and separate lives. Their background history could be one reason why one is more famous than the other. Maybe Cressida Cowell did not get enough social impact of what the people want to read and understand while J.K. Rowling has been living in the city all her life and understands the human behaviors in literature. J.K. Rowling got her start of the Harry Potter series on the King Cross train (Smith). The stories just came to her. Cowell’s stories came from a more deep and meaningful place:
The Hiccup books were inspired by Ms Cowell’s childhood memories of holidays
Spent camping with her parents, brother and sister “on a tiny island in the Inner Hebrides, bought by her father…cut off from the outside world but surrounded by an archipelago of other tiny, uninhabited islands,” as well as by adventures with her parents that were very like the ones Hiccup and his fellow Viking boys face in the series. (Weedleton)
Another factor to Cowell’s slow progress in fame could be the length of the books. J.K. Rowling’s books, are very lengthy, but are at the perfect length where you take a while to read them and be immersed into the story’s world. Cowell however, wrote these stories of How to Train Your Dragon to young readers, for children of ages 8 – 12 year olds. J.K. Rowling has written books and novels, intending for her audiences of the ages between the ages of 10 – 18 and possibly up to young adults (20 – 25).
Another factor that could be a cause is that Rowling started off as an official writer while Cressida Cowell “…began her career as an illustrator…” (Weedleton). Cowell might have had the dream of being an illustrator more than she would being a literary author. Cowell’s first book was in fact a picture book called Little Bo Peep’s Library Book (Weedleton). Maybe her inexperience in writing for larger audiences keeps her writing for children. A solution for her is to be able to expand her writing to teenagers too. Of course, she can still finish the How to Train Your Dragon series because I am a big fan of hers!
From a fan’s point of view, I love the shortness and the way she writes the books. So far, I have read How to Train Your Dragon and hopefully will read the rest of the series and anything that pertains to that series. I also love the J.K. Rowling Harry Potter series and have read all of the books about 20,000 times! Personally, I like the Dragon series because I love the shortness of the stories. It is the way that Cowell writes them that makes me, as the reader, get lost into the Viking world. This does happen to me too when I read the Harry Potter series, but without the backache of bending over to read a long novel for a long period of time.
Reading Cowell’s short books, takes me back to my childhood times and I enjoy the story. When I go back in time as an innocent, using this word as understatement, I would always read books non-stop and that is what I love about reading. Cowell’s book makes me bring out my inner innocence and enjoy reading once again. Now a days reading is a requirement and mostly composed of text readings from the textbook. I really do not have any leisure time. Every year, my leisure time lessens.
My reason into believing that Cressida Cowell’s series of How to Train Your Dragon should be more or at least have the same popularity as J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series is because of the childhood feelings it brings and the vivid stories she writes and puts in her short books. Of course, this does not mean that she should get her own theme park, but if Universal Studios feels up to it, they should! Another reason why she should be more famous is her many books she has written. Even though the books are a lot shorter, she has written, as of now, nine books. She wrote nine books and Rowling only wrote seven books total.
Fame is growing surely but slowly. It is gaining speed since the first book; How to Train Your Dragon “…is now available in 27 languages…” (Weedleton). Her first book is was also adapted into a popular movie which was released in 2010. This comes back to the question, how come Cowell is not more famous than Rowling? There are people out there in the world who have not read the stories by Cowell. They are missing the phenomenon that Cowell herself, a woman who was raised by nature, has written for the world to see.
Works Cited
Cowell, Cressida. " About Cressida Cowell." Childrens Author. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2011.
How to Train Your Dragon. New York: Little Brown and company, 20102003. Print.
Rowling, J.K.. "J.K.Rowling Official Site - Harry Potter and More." J.K.Rowling Official Site - Harry Potter and more. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2011.
Smith, Jules. "J K Rowling." Contemporary Writers in the UK - Contemporary Writers. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2011.
Weedleton, Kim. "Author Spotlight: Cressida Cowell." Bugs and Bunnies. N.p., 22 Jan. 2010. Web. 13 Apr. 2011.
-Erick Senethep
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