I'm Helen Limon. I teach European Studies at The Hague University of Applied Sciences, and I write Dragon Training, a Substack on how creative writing and children's books shape the way we think — and how we work with ai. I've published children's fiction and I'm working on a crime novel set in Amsterdam. My teaching and writing both come back to one question: how stories help us read across difference.
How to train your (AI) dragon
I’ve been thinking about dragons lately. Not the metaphorical kind that live in corporate strategy presentations, but actual fictional dragons—the scaled, fire-breathing, occasionally negotiable creatures that populate children’s literature. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about a scrawny Viking boy named Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third and his small, stubborn dragon Toothless, because it turns out that a 2003 children’s book has something urgent to teach us about working with ai in 2026.
This is part one of my Substack on what children’s literature can teach us about working with ai
Here’s the thing about Hiccup: he’s terrible at being a Viking. He’s small, he’s bookish, and he absolutely cannot make dragons obey through the traditional Viking method, which is, according to Cressida Cowell’s wonderfully absurd books, to YELL AT THEM. So when every other Viking boy is commanding their dragons through sheer volume and intimidation, Hiccup has to figure out something else entirely. continued
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Affiliations
International Research Society for Children’s Literature
