BEST AUTHOR BEST : CRESSIDA COWELL

A Live-action " How to Train Your Dragon '' movie is in theaters, and she's back writing new books in the series.

Her reading list includes Robert Macfarlane, Anne Taylor and recipe books - for bedtime.

.-  Can a great book be badly written? What other criteria can overcome bad prose?

Reading is like eating, you can have a varied diet and enjoy it all. And ''great'' is of course subjective. But a book that stands the test of time is usually one with the perfect words for its audience :

'' Middlemarch'' and '' The Very Hungry Caterpillar '' are both exemplars of that in very different ways.

.-  What's the last great book you read?

'' John & Paul,'' by Ian Leslie, a fascinating account of the creative relationship between John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

.-  Have you ever gotten in trouble for reading a book?

My mother didn't like me reading Enid Blyton books because she thought they were badly written. I took them all out of the library and read them anyway.

.-  Did you ever have second thoughts about naming the hero of '' How to Train Your Dragon '' Hiccup?

Absolutely not ! A '' hiccup '' is another name for an '' accident, '' and what, of course, his father and his tribe come to realize is that. Hiccup isn't an accident at all, he is the best thing that ever happened to them.

Hiccup is a hero who solves problems with his intelligence, his creativity and his empathy rather than his fists.

.-  Why return to this series with a new book 10 years after the last one?

So many young adults in my signing queues now say that the movies introduced them to the books, and that '' How to Train Your Dragon '' was the book that got them into reading.

So with the spinoff series I am providing an entry point that is even more visual. It is set between books 6 and 7, where Hiccup already has his riding dragon, so it is more closely linked with the action in the movie.

.- How do you sign books for your fans?

While chatting. I am so touched by how long children and families are prepared to wait in order to meet their favorite author.

.-  What new thinking did you bring to the material more than 20 years after publishing the first book?

The average age of a child getting a smartphone in the U.K. is now 9. Children are more visual than ever, and we are competing for their time with some of the best screen, television, internet ever.

So this new material is presented in a particularly visual format, with even more world-building illustrations.

But children are highly intelligent, so I never dumb down. I hook them in with humor and action and cliffhangers, while simultaneously using lovely language and interesting ideas.

The Publishing continues to Part [2]. The World Students Society thanks The New York Times.