

In retrospect I think it may have planted the bug of travel in my heart, when I was still quite an unwilling traveller:) I only researched the places or talked with friends who had been to the Himalayas or Scotland. Interestingly, I took my characters on a journey I never made myself. Before I wrote this book I considered myself mostly an illustrator who wrote stories for her illustrations :) The book changed my life in many ways, as it made me a true writer. wrote my very first long novel, much encouraged by my late publisher, Uwe Weitendorf. When I went to work on it I realized that I didn't want to write the story for an animated TV series, bought the rights back and.

I explained that books can't be stretched like rubber bands and that I will try to write a new, better and longer version of the story. Q: Can you take us back to the first Dragon Rider book and tell us what inspired you to write that story?Ī: It is so long ago, I can barely remember! I wrote Dragon Rider more than 19 years ago, after a TV producer had asked me to make my very first book, A Quest for a Dragon, longer (to quote him) for an animated adaptation. We asked author Cornelia Funke to tell us more about her latest book: The Griffin's Feather takes Ben and his adoptive father Professor Greenbloom on a new mission - to find the sun feather of a Griffin, the only thing that can save the lives of three unborn Pegasi foals.Īs well as plenty of adventure and jeopardy, The Griffin's Feather - like Dragon Rider - is a story about our environment and a call to save the many species that call Earth their home. Author linkĪfter repeated requests from young readers, bestselling author Cornelia Funke has returned to her Dragon Rider novel to pen an engaging new story for readers aged 9+, featuring the young dragon rider, Ben, and many of the characters we met in his first adventure. Her books have now sold more than 20 million copies worldwide and have been translated into 37 languages. Cornelia Funke is the highly acclaimed, award-winning and bestselling author of the Inkheart trilogy, Dragon Rider, The Thief Lord and numerous other children's novels and picture books.īorn in 1958 in the German town of Dorsten, she worked as a social worker for a few years before turning first to illustration and then to writing.
