British Author Challenge January 2026: Cressida Cowell & Richard Adams

Cressida Cowell is a best-selling author of children's books. She is best known for the Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III series, which was adapted into the How to Train Your Dragon franchise. I selected her because of my love of Hiccup, especially the audio versions read by David Tennant.

Selected works
Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III series
Emily Brown series
The Wizards of Once series
Treetop Twins Wilderness Adventures series
Which Way series
The Tiny Detectives series

Richard Adams comes at the suggestion of @alcottacre. I've somehow missed having read him yet, but I look forward to remedying that.

Selected works
Watership Down
The Plague Dogs
Shardik
Maia
The Girl in a Swing
Traveller
The Iron Wolf and Other Stories
The Outlandish Knight

>1 amanda4242: I bought the entire Wizards of Once series to read, lol.

>3 alcottacre: Hope you like it!

For me it will be Shardik & The Wizards of Once

>5 PaulCranswick: I may have to join you guys for The Wizards of Once.

>4 amanda4242: So do I, lol.

I have The Plague Dogs lined up and a couple by Cressida Cowell requested at the library.

I have The Plague Dogs on deck. I have access to Shardik.

I think I found that audiobook version of How to train your Dragon. I read Watership Down ages ago, when it had just come out, I guess. There was that song, too.

>10 EllaTim: I just read Watership Down (a re-read) late last year which is why I am concentrating on Cowell's books for this challenge. Getting any of Adams' other books is a bit problematic.

It probably says a lot about me that the thing I'm most excited about doing on 01-01-2026 is hitting play on the audiobook of How to Train Your Dragon!

It's been rainy and windy here, so I've spent the day lounging around in my fuzzy jammies and listening to David Tennant read How to Train Your Dragon. I probably would have done this no matter the weather, but it's nice to have the excuse!

>13 amanda4242: Sounds like a wonderful way to spend New Years to me!

>14 alcottacre: I certainly enjoyed it!

This will be my first time joining the British Author Challenge. I will probably just be dipping in and out of the challenge, but I wanted to join in this month because I have somehow never read Watership Down. I don't know how it passed me by in my youth, but it did, so I'd like to remedy the oversight. There's a waitlist at my library, but I hope the book will come in in time for me to read it this month.

>16 atozgrl: Welcome! I haven't read Watership Down either, but hope to get to it soon.

>16 atozgrl: >17 amanda4242: I hope you both enjoy the book! I love Hazel myself.

I’m so excited for you who are going to be reading Watership Down for the first time! It’s a wonderful book, and I can only hope you’ll love it as much as I did when I read it.

>13 amanda4242: I just finished listening to it. Great fun, and David Tennant is a big part in that. We had a cold day here, snow, so it was nice to stay inside and listen to a fun story like this.

>20 EllaTim: Glad you liked it!

>1 amanda4242: I knew the name rung a bell for me! It's the great HTTYD! (I should be too old to enjoy such things, but I recently found I don't care. Have you seen Zoopolis/Zootopia 2? Fantastic.)

See, this is the problem with having a bit of free time after the New Year. You end up scrolling LT and seeing all those lovely challenges, and you think "why not?"... and then, y'know, you end up not having time to read all that. But I would have joined if only for Cressida Cowell (and Tolkien in December). Maybe next year.

UPDATE: Looks like I already have that book in my kobo account... That could be a sign. If I have spare time this month, I'll read it.

I finished The Plague Dogs and found it a really good read. I love how it all unfolded at the end.
Now reading The Wizards of Once but it's not my main read. How to train your dragon finally turned up at my library after a couple of weeks in transit.

>23 avatiakh: Hope you find How to Train Your Dragon worth the wait.

I found both The Wizards of Once and How to train your Dragon a lot of fun and a good distraction from more serious reading.

Finished The Wizards of Once. A bit of light fun, but Xar was an infuriating character.

I also finished The Plague Dogs this week. This one is not a children’s or YA novel. It is a hard read.

>27 Kristelh: Yes, it took me much longer to get through than I anticipated.

I just finished The Wizards of Once tonight and was grateful for a lighter read with all the heavy stuff I have read in January. I thought it was great fun, but I agree with Jayne - Xar was enfuriating at times (well, actually most of the time).

The February thread is up!

https://www.librarything.com/topic/378194#

I've read How To Train Your Dragon; a slightly disappointing read. This is one of children's books that doesn't hold much of appeal once you're a grownup; at least for me, there were many little detailes that made me think about what are we really teaching our kids via literature.

>31 zuzaer: Agree. I saw the movie before my kids and I read the book and this is definitely one instance of the movie being better than the book. It didn't even appeal to my kids.

>32 JayneCM: I thought the movie sucked, and then read the book, which I like. *shrug* Takes all sorts!

>31 zuzaer: These books that don't appeal so much to adults are usually the books that hook some more reluctant children into reading. Literature is an escape for children as well as adults.

I generally read & critique these types of books with the intended audience in mind. I think overall I prefer the movies as well, my daughter collected them all on dvd, yet was not interested in the books at all.
An article I found about Cresssida Cowell & HTTYD
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/22/cressida-cowell-how-to-train-your-...

I read How To Train Your Dragon, and I thought it was cute. I don't plan on reading any more in the series, but I may watch one of the movie adaptations.

>35 Dejah_Thoris: The first book is mostly an introduction to the world. As the series continues Hiccup goes on quests where he learns lessons about what it means to be a true hero instead of just a guy who's good at hitting people with an ax; by the end, there's a massive societal change that couldn't have occurred if Hiccup hadn't decided to learn Dragonese.

One of the things that really annoyed me about the movie is that they didn't give the dragons a language. It does to this series what making the monster mute does to Frankenstein.

>36 amanda4242: Why ever did they do that. The little dragon’s voice is so funny in the first book!

>37 EllaTim: God only knows what they were thinking. Not only are the dragons great characters in their own right, it's thematically important for them to be sapient creatures in the later books.

>16 atozgrl: I am coming here a bit late to report that I have finally finished Watership Down. There was a hold list on it at the library, and my hold didn't come in until the very end of January. Then I didn't get a whole lot of reading done this month, because I was watching the Olympics. But I did finally finish it late Friday night (or early Saturday morning). I am very glad I was finally able to read this book, and I can see why it's considered a classic.

>34 avatiakh: I agree that if I were to read that book with the intended audience in mind, the results probably would've been better. Maybe other books in the series are even better. I simply read the book as I would've any other (and maybe it was a mistake) and decided that I won't be reading any more. (By the way, I quite liked "Horrid Henry" as a kid so I kind of get the enthusiasm as I would—maybe wrongly—put both in the similar category).
An interesting article. I strongly agree that reading (almost) everything is definitely better than not reading.
>36 amanda4242: From your description, I understnad there's definitely a strong development later in the series. That's good!
>39 atozgrl: I hope you enjoyed the Olympics! (I did. I'm a bit of a fan of figure skating).

I finished the last of the Wizards of Once series the other day. Book 3 was my favorite of the four, book 1 was my least favorite. I sent the books off to my daughter and I will be curious to see what she makes of them.