A Puffin Book

The Puffin Book of Christmas Stories is essential Christmas-time reading including classic and contemporary stories, from traditional to real life, humour and most importantly, the magic of Christmas. Christmas is coming! A delightful collection of stories by some of the finest writers for children.Writers range from Charles Dickens to Gillian Cross, Trish Cooke, Malorie Blackman and Jacqueline Wilson.

Rediscover the A Puffin Book series and bring the best-loved classics to a new generation - including this highly anticipated edition of More Arabel and Mortimer.

Late one night, as Mr Jones drove his taxi home through a storm, he spotted a large black bird with a hairy fringe round its beak sprawled out in the road.

Mr Jones decides to take the bird home to meet his daughter, Arabel, she'll know what to do - she loves animals!

'His name's Mortimer', she said.

Return to Number Six, Rainwater Crescent, London, NW 3 ½ with Arabel and Mortimer as this mischievous bird continues to cause chaos in the Jones household. . .

Rediscover the A Puffin Book series and bring the best-loved classics to a new generation - including this treasured edition of Arabel and Mortimer Stories.

Late one night, as Mr Jones drove his taxi home through a storm, he spotted a large black bird with a hairy fringe round its beak sprawled out in the road.

Mr Jones decides to take the bird home to Number Six, Rainwater Crescent, London, NW 3 ½, to meet his daughter, Arabel, she'll know what to do - she loves animals!

'His name's Mortimer', she said.

But it doesn't take long until the mischievous Mortimer causes chaos in the Jones household. . .

Bud is on a journey. He has hit the road with one idea in mind - he wants to discover his father. He's not got a lot to go on - just a flyer for a jazz band and his very own Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself. Despite encounters with a car-driving vampire, a monster-infested woodshed and even a real live girl, Bud presses on towards a surprising discovery ...

It is Charlotte's first night at boarding school. Before she goes to sleep, she sees from the window a corner of the new building. But when she wakes up, instead of the building there is a huge, dark cedar tree, and the girl in the next bed is not the girl who slept there last night. She calls Charlotte 'Clare', and says she is her younger sister Emily. Somehow, Charlotte has slipped back forty years to 1918 and the end of the First World War. Charlotte and Clare swap places ever night until one day Charlotte becomes trapped in 1918 and must find a way to return to her own time before the end of term.

Kitty Killin is not just a brilliant story-teller, but also the World's Great Expert when it comes to mothers having new and unwelcome boyfriends. So it's no surprise that she's the one chosen to sort out classmate Helly, who's gone into meltdown. Kitty decides to share her story about old Goggle-eyes - possibly one of the worst episodes in her life...

When night falls Cat Country comes to life. Carbonel, the King of Cats, and Queen Blandamour have long reigned supreme, but the wicked grey Persian cat Grisana and her cronies have plans to take the throne. Carbonel turns to his young friends Rosemary and John for help and together with some magic spells, they battle for the future of Cat Country - but only the strongest magic will prevail.

Mrs Pepperpot can't choose when she will shrink to the size of a pepperpot - it just happens. But whatever she does, whether it's swimming with a frog, rescuing a baby bird, or seeing off an unwelcome visitor, Mrs Pepperpot will always save the day.

Rediscover the A Puffin Book series and bring the best-loved classics to a new generation - including this thrilling edition of The Shadow Guests.

Following the double disappearance of his mother and older brother, Cosmo Curtoy is sent to live with his strange cousin in England.

When he arrives, Cosmo decides to explore the ancient Mill House on his cousins' estate - where he meets the Mill's spirited guests. . .

But can he trust them?

Join Cosmo on this supernatural time-travelling adventure and break the Curtoy's curse!

Once upon a time, many years ago - when our grandfathers were little children - there was a doctor, and his name was Dolittle - John Dolittle M.D.

Doctor Dolittle likes animals. In fact, he likes them so much he fills his house with every kind of creature imaginable and even learns to talk their language. And when the Doctor hears of a terrible sickness among the monkeys in Africa, soon he and his animal friends are setting off on the most unforgettable adventure . . .

The Borrowers live in the secret places of quiet old houses - behind the mantelpiece, inside the harpsichord, under the kitchen clock. Everything they have is borrowed from the 'human beans', who don't even know they exist. But then young Arrietty makes friends with a boy - a 'human bean' - and from that moment danger is never far away for, above all else, they must avoid the great disaster of 'being seen'.
In The Borrowers Afield the Pod family escape to the fields where their cousins live, but it's a long and dangerous journey. In The Borrowers Afloat Arrietty looks forward to a life away from the dark country cottage, to one full of sunshine. In The Borrowers Aloft: the family are now living in the model village of Little Fordham. All they have to do is avoid being seen by the visitors . . . In The Borrowers Avenged Pod, Homily and Arrietty have managed to escape with the help of Spiller. They move into the old rectory where they live happily until the Potters come looking for them.
Poor Stainless: Young Stainless, a Borrower boy, goes missing on a mission to borrow some parsley and an enormous search ensues.

Emily and Jess Volnik have returned for another Scottish adventure, joining their old friend Tommy and Mr Maconochie, the new owner of Castle Keep, on a trip to Loch Ness, where a new expedition is determined to find the fabled monster.

The fun-loving Boggart - a mischievous shape-shifting spirit who has lived in the castle for centuries -comes along for the ride, but this time the Boggart has a serious mission. His cousin Nessie is trapped in the monster shape he took on long ago, and it's up to the Boggart to keep Nessie from being discovered by the expedition's high-tech equipment. Is modern science any match for the Boggart's ancient magic?

Accidentally transported from his remote Scottish castle to the bright, fast-moving, hi-tech city of Toronto, the highly mischievous Boggart simply can't resist the opportunity for pranks, and wreaks havoc for the Volnik family, inheritors of his distant castle home. But the Boggart doesn't mean any real harm, and when he begins to pine for the rolling Scottish mists and the sound of bagpipes, he turns to his two young friends, Emily and Jessup Volnik, for help.

A delightfully funny and moving story for children.

When Charles Wallace Murry goes searching through a 'wrinkle in time' for his lost father, he finds himself on an evil planet where all life is enslaved by a huge pulsating brain known as 'It'. How Charles, his sister Meg and friend Calvin find and free his father makes this a very special and exciting mixture of fantasy and science fiction, which all the way through is dominated by the funny and mysterious trio of guardian angels known as Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who and Mrs Which.

Discovered as a foundling in a lambing pen, Spider Sparrow grows up surrounded by animals. From sheep and horses to wild otters and foxes, Spider loves them all, even the crows he must scare away from the newly sown wheat. Crowstarving is the ideal job for Spider - he is on his own, yet never alone for all around him are animals of one sort or another. Amazingly, every animal who meets Spider implicitly trusts the young boy. This magical rapport is Spider's unique gift, but nothing else in his tough life is so easy.

Let it be flour babies. Let chaos reign.

When the annual school science fair comes round, Mr Cartwright's class don't get to work on the Soap Factory, the Maggot Farm or the Exploding Custard Tins. To their intense disgust they get the Flour Babies - sweet little six-pound bags of flour that must be cared for at all times.

Funny and poignant, Flour Babies is a brilliant depiction of secondary school life.