Dragon Rider

About
Firedrake was a young dragon who is on a quest to find the Rim of Heaven, a mythical home for dragons. The brownie girl Sorrel and the human boy Ben helped him with his quest. The journey was dangerous. Full of Nettlebrand and the Golden one. But friendship was created with Professor Greenbloom and his family.

Author's Note
Ever since I wrote Dragon Rider, I have been a mad collector of dragons – stuffed dragons, paper dragons, china dragons, small ones, big ones, green ones, red ones – but there is still not a single one in my collection that can fly like Firedrake. Everyone who knew my first dog, Rico, will know that Firedrake looks a little like him. But Rico also couldn't fly. I wrote Dragon Rider because flying on a dragon was the one thing in life I really really wanted to do and I knew that writing about it was the closest I would probably come to the actually experiencing it. So I simply imagined it – something I have always been rather good at.But I wrote Dragon Rider for other reasons as well. The book goes back to some ideas I used in my very first book "The Dragon Quest". Somebody wanted to make a series out of it and asked me to make the story a little longer. Well, you can't just make a story longer and so I decided to write it anew and in a slightly different way. While I wrote this new story I also decided I didn't want to see it as a TV series and so now there's just the book. And that's how I wrote my very first really thick book. And then I was hooked. After Dragon Rider I kept coming up with ideas for thicker and thicker books. And I learnt that longer stories quickly gain a life of their own and that they turn out to be as much of an adventure for the writer as they are for the reader.And there was one more reason to write Dragon Rider. I wanted to draw dragons and all the strange creatures that live with them. My study still smells of the many mushrooms brought in by children who knew how much Sorrel likes to eat them. And then there is Twigleg, the manikin. Of all the creatures I invented he is still one of my favourites. And I had so much fun drawing the sea serpent.

Extract
The dragon spread his shimmering wings and took off. Holding his breath, Ben clung tight to the spines of Firedrake's crest. The dragon rose higher and higher. They left the noise of the city behind. Night enfolded them in darkness and silence, and soon the world of men was no more than a glitter of lights far below.'Well, how do you like it?' Sorrel called to Ben when they had been flying for some time. 'Do you feel sick?''Sick?' Ben looked down to where roads wound through the darkness like gleaming snail trails. 'It's wonderful! It's - oh, I can't describe it!''Personally I always feel sick to start with,' said Sorrel. 'The only thing that helps is eating. Take a look in my backpack and hand me a mushroom, will you? One of the little black ones.'Ben did as she asked. Then he looked down again. The wind was roaring in his ears.'Wonderful!' said Sorrel, smacking her lips. 'A following wind. This way we'll be in the mountains before daybreak. Firedrake!'The dragon turned his head to her.'Time to turn east!' Sorrel called. 'Eastward ho!''What, already?' Ben looked over her shoulder. Sorrel had the rat's map on her lap and was tracing the golden line with her finger. 'But we haven't reached the right place yet!' cried Ben. 'We can't have.'Putting his hand in his jacket pocket, he brought out a little compass. His torch, his penknife and his compass were his chief treasures. 'We have to go further south first, Sorrel!' he called. 'It's too soon to change course yet.''No, it's not.' The Brownie patted her stomach happily and leaned back against the spines of Firedrake's crest. 'Here, see for yourself, cleverclogs.'She handed Ben the map. It fluttered so much in the wind that he could hardly hold it. Anxiously, he scrutinised the lines the rat had drawn. 'We really do have to go further south!' he called. 'If we turn east now we'll end up in that patch of yellow!''So?' Sorrel closed her eyes. 'Good thing if we do. That's where Gilbert said we should stop and rest.''No, he didn't!' cried Ben. 'You mean grey. It's in the grey parts he told us to rest. He warned us against yellow. Look.' Ben switched on his torch and shone it on the words at the bottom of the map. 'Gilbert wrote it down here. Yellow = danger, bad luck.'