Puffin Books is a longstanding children's imprint of the British publishers Penguin Books. Since the 1960s, it has been among the largest publishers of children's books in the UK and much of the English-speaking world.[1] The imprint now belongs to Penguin Random House, a subsidiary of the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann.
Four years after Penguin Books had been founded by Allen Lane, the idea for Puffin Books was hatched in 1939, when Noel Carrington, at the time an editor for Country Life books, met him and proposed a series of children's non-fiction picture books, inspired by the brightly coloured lithographed books mass-produced at the time for Soviet children.[2][3] Lane saw the potential, and the first of the picture book series were published the following year. The name "Puffin" was a natural companion to the existing "Penguin" and "Pelican" books. Many continued to be reprinted right into the 1970s. A fiction list soon followed, when Puffin secured the paperback rights to Barbara Euphan Todd's 1936 story Worzel Gummidge and brought it out as the first Puffin story book in 1941.[4]
In 1961, Kaye Webb became Puffin's second editor, as a boom began in children's publishing, and in a decade the Puffin list grew from 51 titles when she took over to 1,213 in print by 1969. Puffin obtained the paperback rights to many of the best writers of the time, including Philippa Pearce, Rosemary Sutcliff, William Mayne, Alan Garner and Antonia Forest, all-time classics including Mary Poppins, Dr Dolittle and The Hobbit, and originals such as Stig of the Dump by Clive King. The books were promoted with flair through the Puffin Club, started by Kaye Webb in 1967 with the promise to Allen Lane that "It will make children into book readers". Though by 1987, it had become uneconomical and evolved into the schools-only Puffin Book Club, at its height the club had 200,000 subscribers and held regular Puffin Exhibitions, and its magazine Puffin Post appeared quarterly for many years, resuming publication in January 2009.
Webb set up the Puffin Club partly to address class inequality in children's literacy.[5] It was important to her that membership was affordable, and Puffin subsidised costs for that reason.[5] She and her team replied to every letter that children sent in, in order to create a sense of community.[5]
Colony Holidays (predecessor to ATE Superweeks) ran Children's Literature Summer Camps for members of the Puffin Book Club. Fifty or so children from all over Britain who loved reading would spend a ten-day holiday together, and popular children's authors such as Joan Aiken, Ian Serraillier and Clive King would spend a few days with them.[6] Webb continued as editor until 1979, and the 1970s saw Puffin further advance its position with successes such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl and Watership Down by Richard Adams.
The 1980s also saw the launch of the Puffin Plus line of young adult fiction, a market earlier catered for by the imprint Peacock Books. In 2010, the young adult line was relaunched as Razorbill.[8]
The 1990s continued to see new writers join Puffin and in the 21st century the brand still shows heroes and heroines familiar to children such as Artemis Fowl, Percy Jackson, Max Gordon, Mildred Hubble and Scarlett, while celebrities such as Kylie Minogue and Madonna have written for Puffin.[2]
In 2023, it was revealed that Puffin had employed sensitivity readers to edit content regarded as objectionable from at least 10 of the classic works of Roald Dahl, making hundreds of changes to Dahl's works to remove words like "fat", "ugly", and "crazy", and references to gender.[9][10] Phrases such as "boys and girls" became "people" or "children". Puffin explained that these changes were part of the usual editing processes "to ensure that it can continue to be enjoyed by all today." After the revelation of these changes, Puffin was criticised by numerous literary and political figures, including by author Salman Rushdie[11] and Queen Camilla.[12]
Following backlash Puffin announced that they would continue to release the Classic version of Dahl's original works alongside the edited versions,[13] while other publishers of Dahl's works refused to consider the changes at all.[14]
Puffin Post
Puffin Post was a children's books magazine published by Puffin Books, and the magazine of the Puffin Club.[15] It was launched in 1967 by Kaye Webb, editor of Puffin Books.[15] It declined after Webb retired in 1982, but was relaunched in 2009 through the bookseller The Book People as a bi-monthly magazine.[15] The magazine was discontinued again with the November 2012 issue.[15]
^ abjoint venture with Amperwelle Studio München Programmanbietergesellschaft, Axel Springer AG, Burda, Studio Gong, m.b.t. Mediengesellschaft der bayerischen Tageszeitungen für Kabelkommunikation, Medienpool and Radio Bavaria Rundfunkprogrammgesellschaft.
^joint venture with Axel Springer, Heinrich Bauer Verlag, Lühmanndruck Harburger Zeitungsgesellschaft and Morgenpost Verlag.
