20 things to do with a LittleBird (Part 2)!

 

LittleBirdThe number of places a little bird can take you never fails to surprise us puffins! This summer 20 of our all time favourite stories took pride of place on bookshelves across the land. But they didn’t just perch there in all their finery. They took readers to the streets of London, the wilds of Wales, under the floorboards and into the future! They certainly got the team over at LittleBird inspired (they specialise in tracking down the  best deals for families).

Here are ten ideas about how you could make a Puffin Book come to life with activities inspired by the adventures. ‘ONLY TEN’, we hear you cry ‘but you said there were 20!’ . If you want to see the next ten ideas and for your chance to WIN all 20 books in the collection head over to LittleBird’s blog.

 

SmithSmith – Leon Garfield

LittleBird’s activity: Visit the Museum of London and experience 18thCentury London. Visit the reconstructed Georgian Pleasure Garden– and mind out for pickpockets like Smith!

 

Back HomeBack Home – Michelle Magorian

LittleBird’s activity: Rusty hides out in a cabin in the woods, create your own hideout and have a go at building a den

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Borrowers for readers big and small!

You may have noticed that this month there’s a new colony of  twenty puffins flocking into bookshops – puffins by the name of Charlotte, Stig and Arrietty in fact. We love these stories and so do our mums, and granddads and even our great-great aunties. That’s why we asked LoveReading reviewers young and . . . a little bit older. . . to tell us what they though. First, in the spotlight are those resourceful folk, The Borrowers.

 

Tanya &  Leoni Leoni, age 8, says

The whole time me and my mum were reading this book I was thinking ‘aw they’re so cute’ or ‘that’s cool. I wish I could do that’

I wish there really was little tiny people living under the floor in my house and I wish I was the person who found them. I’ve even got a doll house they could live in, and it’s got tiny furniture!

I loved the film and I loved the book just as much. When my mum was having my little sister and she asked me what I’d like to call her I wanted to call her Arrietty Mariella. It would have been nice if we could have been Borrowers together.

The Borrowers Leoni’s mum says

Growing up ‘The Borrowers’ was one of my favourite books and reading it again with my daughter was a lovely experience. There’s something very exciting about little people living in your house ‘borrowing’ things. I remember as a child (with an overactive imagination) when something went missing thinking we had Borrowers and searching the house for hours just incase, in the hope I might actually see one. It also gave me lots of ideas for making things for myself out of bits and pieces lying around. I’d think to myself ‘here’s a button. What could I use this for?What would a Borrower make out of it?’A truly magical, wonderful story with a happy ending and I’m glad I got to read it again.

 

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Which Borrowers cover did you have? Tell us your favourite moments or tweet a photo using #ShareAPuffinBook and we might just send you a new puffin so you can pass the story on . . . @puffinbooks

See original illustrations from The Borrowers and many more treasures from the puffin archives at the A PUFFIN BOOK Waterstones Summer Exhibition running throughout July and August.

 

A new colony of Puffins!

A Puffin Book

 

Salutations world! Today, Thursday 3rd June is a very special day indeed. To celebrate the publication of A PUFFIN BOOK, a new-born puffling on the National Trust’s Farne Islands has been named in honour of that terrific yet humble pig ‘Wilbur’, from E.B White’s much-love Charlotte’s Web.


Wilbur The Puffling

He’s every bit as radiant as his namesake, don’t you think?

And that’s not all . . .  another new arrival is on the way. But what will the next puffling be called? Well the responsibility rests with you dear readers and feathery bibliophiles. Tweet tweet @puffinbooks or @penguinukbooks  using your preferred hashtag. Does he have the resourceful twinkle of Arrietty the Borrower? The magical spark of Gobbolino? Or maybe he’s more a wander of  the water like Tarka? You decide.

NameAPUFFIN
To help you choose your favourite – why not take a look at the beautiful new covers for the A PUFFIN BOOK collection, twenty timeless stories for a new generation – all with lots of hidden treasures within the Extra! Extra! Read all about it! sections at the end of every book (and if you’re on NetGalley you can download a whopping sampler filled with first chapters from all twenty of these much loved stories to help you choose what to read next).