Which Way to Anywhere: From the No.1 bestselling author of HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON

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Join former Waterstones Children’s Laureate Cressida Cowell as she talks about her out-of-this-world new series, Which Way to Anywhere, and reveals how she was inspired by an idea she first had 25 years ago. She’ll also talk about her bestselling How to Train Your Dragon books and The Wizards of Once series. Best-selling children’s author and former Children’s Laureate Cressida Cowell’s Which Way to Anywhere is a fantasy story and a family story that zings with magic, warmth and adventure. The story – illustrated with Cowell’s familiar, scratchy sketches – has everything that her fans have come to expect. Characters evolve and surprise us (“there’s nothing like an adventure to find out whether you are a Hero or not”); a dense plot swiftly unravels; and as with all the best fantasy, there is a skilled balance between humdrum drama (“[K2] accidentally shot an own goal that lost his team the match in PE, so Angus McDognut gave K2 a dead arm, and K2 had to hide in the toilets”) and high thrills: “Now, calm your breathing, for there are truly terrible things in this planet’s jungle who hunt by the smell of fear, and they hate human beings with a hungry, bloody hatred ... you do not want to draw the attention of these creatures.” The sky’s the limit here, with as many worlds to explore as the author can imagine. This book has given me a taste for what magic is possible but it’s clear we’ve only just scratched the surface.

Unlike her previous fantasy series, Which Way to Anywhere is set in the present day. “This is a story of a Very Modern Magic that is not buried faraway in the darkness of the Bronze Ages nor in the shifting mists of the Viking past, but is hiding in plain sight.” But while the landscape has changed, Cowell has not – and what follows is a highly imagined roller-coaster of a fantasy, written with the author’s familiar panache: “We’re visiting Earth at a very bad moment, when one particular family has most unfortunately come to the notice of the most ruthless and imperious and dreadful minds in the Infinite Galaxies…” The stepfather doesn’t suspect he married into such an interesting family. Neither does Theo, his intelligent and sporty son, or Mabel, his quiet and kind daughter. We know K2 feels insecure about not being ‘heroic’, but we never find out what that means. Hiccup accepted that he was not a Viking Hero and withdrew to study Dragonese. Wish became anxious and fearful of her mother while Xar became rebellious and self centered. From the #1 internationally bestselling author of How to Train Your Dragon and Wizards of Once comes an out-of-this-world adventure where magic and reality collide!When 11-year-old K2 O'Hero discovers he has a Magical gift allowing him and his siblings to travel to alternative worlds (yes, there really are alternative worlds out there), some very weird things start happening. And when someone they love is in danger, the children must set off on a rescue mission to a planet on the other side of the Galaxy . . . But K2 has a secret gift: he draws maps of worlds that are beyond the wildest of imaginations. Worlds with six hundred moons, burning rivers and dark, twisty jungles alive with plants that hunt by the smell of fear. But what K2 doesn’t know, is that the maps he draws are real. It has a fairly familiar concept at its heart. Magic is real and can be used to open doorways between different worlds. This is a longstanding fantasy trope, that's played with very effectively here by Cressida Cowell. These doorways are opened by drawings of maps, as long as they are done by someone with the right magical gift. The only problem is there hasn't been anyone with that gift for centuries, so someone born with the gift of creating an atlas like that would be both incredibly dangerous and incredibly valuable. Keep an ideas notebook so you can scribble down ideas and drawings. This doesn’t need to be neat, and no one should be correcting it for spelling, because spelling doesn’t matter. I kept an sketchbook for The Wizards of Once for about 5 years. Night Mayor Franklefink has vanished from the Transylvanian Express - and it's up to you to solve the case! Part of the Solve Your Own Mystery seri...

My top writing tip would be to read lots, to give you a feel for the way different stories can be told. Also practise writing as much as you can – write, and re-write – don’t worry if you don’t finish a story, as long as you are practising, that’s what matters. Also don’t worry if your stories aren’t very long: I didn’t start out writing books as long as the ones I write now. I came away buzzing and reassured that we still have in this century a wide ranging community fascinated not just by famous authors (I’ve rarely seen so many concentrated in one place) but by challenging ideas and questions. Hold on tight for an out-of-this-world new adventure from the No.1 bestselling author of How to Train Your Dragon and The Wizards of Once. A fantastic fast-paced adventure filled with Cressida Cowell's signature clever word play and witty writing. A story to delight all ages.Which way to Anywhere is new story. It centres around the rather mixed up O'Hero/Smith blended family. K2 and his sister, Izzabird are the descendants of the magical O'Hero family, who have been joined in their rather unique and strange home by Theo and Mabel Smith. The two sets of children are struggling to get along and adjust to being a family when a substitute geography teacher/intergalactic pirate suddenly gives the children a strange map drawing task. This sets off a bizarre chain of events that sets the children on an adventure to a planet millions of miles away from Earth. From the bestselling author of How to Train Your Dragon comes an epic new series that will transport you into another world ... Lastly, I felt like all the loose ends were not wrapped up in a nice way. This was very much a first-in-the-series book. Even more so than Wizards of once. This is a book about magic and amazing technology and different worlds and the impacts our careless actions can have. But it is more than that. It is a book about family.

A new series by Cressida Cowell is always an event. Her How to Train Your Dragon books, about the escapades of a hapless young Viking called Hiccup, sold more than 10 million copies; and The Wizards of Once stories, in which two children get into magical mishaps in a fantasia of ancient Britain, is being made into a Hollywood film. Can she pull it off again? The cast list that children will meet is great. It instantly captures your attention, but that’s what Cressida Cowell’s writing and imagination does and this book doesn’t disappoint. Cressida Cowell: Which Way to Anywhere? | What’s On | Edinburgh International Book Festival (edbookfest.co.uk) I hate to say, but really when all this book has is 4 kids, an evil force that they only encounter once and an illegal piece of paper; it's just a pile of words.l loved reading Which Way to Anywhere, which is the first book in a new series by Cressida Cowell. I enjoyed her How to Train Your Dragon and Wizards of Once series. All of them are fantastic worlds with great and interesting characters. She is one of my favourite authors.

But K2 has a secret gift: He draws maps of worlds that are beyond the wildest imaginations. Worlds with six hundred moons, burning rivers, and dark, twisty jungles alive with plants that hunt by the smell of fear. But what K2 doesn’t know is that the maps he draws are real . But K2 has a secret gift: he draws maps of worlds that are beyond the wildest of imaginations. Worlds with six hundred moons, burning rivers and dark, twisty jungles alive with plants that hunt by the smell of fear. But what K2 doesn't know, is that the maps he draws are real.I have so many questions, including those raised by the story’s narrator. I’m looking forward to getting to know the Aunts better; they have the potential to be fabulously fun to follow around. I definitely need to borrow one of their vacuum cleaners. He draws maps of worlds that are beyond the wildest of imaginations. Worlds with six hundred moons, burning rivers, armoured robots and dark, twisty jungles alive with cannibal plants who hunt by the smell of fear. But what K2 doesn't know, is that the maps he draws are real. They are worlds beyond the world we know, and the maps he draws make up an Alternative Atlas showing the exact spot where the worlds cross. Cowell is the author and illustrator of the bestselling How to Train Your Dragon and The Wizards of Once series. She is also the author of the Emily Brown picture books, illustrated by Neal Layton. How to Train Your Dragon has sold over 8 million books worldwide in 38 languages. It is also an award-winning DreamWorks film series, and a television series shown on Netflix and CBBC. The book is stuffed with eccentric characters, some of whom pass through briefly, but may have a larger role to play in the future. Cressida Cowell was the Waterstones Children's Laureate (2019-2022). She is the author and illustrator of the bestselling The Wizards of Once and How to Train Your Dragon books series, and the author of the Emily Brown picture books, illustrated by Neal Layton.