Much-loved and biggest UK children’s book publisher Puffin, which celebrates its 80th birthday in 2020, has re-vamped a huge range of events to take authors, illustrators and stories directly into children’s homes.

Initiatives include a daily Puffin Storytime, a Puffin Podcast series, an online book festival – the Puffin Festival of Big Dreams – as well as updated Puffin Schools resources to facilitate home-learning.

They’re also working with numerous partners to ensure children can continue to dream big and engage with reading and the power of storytelling from their homes

Puffin’s range of activities and free initiatives across the coming months for children and families to enjoy from indoors, includes:

• Puffin Storytime: From Monday 6th April, Puffin will be bringing 20 minutes of storytime magic to homes daily at 3.30pm on weekdays. This will include readings and draw-alongs from their stellar list of authors and illustrators. Caregivers, teachers and children can view Puffin Storytime on Puffin’s YouTube, Instagram and Facebook channels #PuffinStorytime

The Full ‘Puffin Storytime’ Schedule

Mondays & Fridays, 3.30pm – Storytime & Draw-alongs for little ones 0-5. Launching on 6th April with Look Up! by Nathan Bryon and Dapo Adeola

Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3.30pm – Sam Copeland will serialise, in 20-minute episodes, the entirety of his hilarious book Charlie Changes into a Chicken for readers 7+ 

Wednesdays, 3.30pm – Story Starters for ages 6-11. Puffin authors will read extracts from their books to help inspire children to discover their next read. Launching on 8th April with an extract from the bestselling Murder Most Unladylike read by Robin Stevens.

• The Puffin Podcast: A new three-part Puffin Podcast series will launch on Sunday 19th April (via Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Acast and YouTube Kids), where comedian, children’s author and YouTube personality Humza Arshad hosts laugh-out-loud stories, games and jokes guaranteed to give you the giggles! Aimed at unlocking creativity, taking stories to imaginations worldwide and inspiring children to dream big, the podcast will be available at www.puffin.co.uk/podcast   

• The Big Dreams on Screen: In partnership with Into Film, Puffin’s The Big Dreams on Screen competition has now launched, and children have until 2nd August to send in their big dreams for a chance to have them turned into a film and premiered at their local cinema later in the year as part of the Into Film Festival, the largest youth-focused film festival in the world. Further information on how to enter can be found here

• The Puffin Festival of Big Dreams: To celebrate their 80th birthday and to mark the publication of The Puffin Book of Big Dreams, Puffin will be launching an online seven-day Puffin Festival of Big Dreams in May. The festival aims to inspire children, parents and teachers, and take readers of all ages on a virtual journey through 80 years of Puffin. The festival will host a five-day programme of writing workshops, drawing masterclasses and storytime sessions with Puffin’s diverse list of authors and illustrators, culminating in a weekend of live events. There will also be some surprises along the way with content reveals and behind-the-scenes footage. Puffin will ask readers, authors and illustrators to share their own big dreams during the festival using the hashtag #PuffinDreamer

• Puffin Schools: To support teachers, parents and caregivers now tackling home-learning, the Puffin Schools website has been restructured to make Puffin books and resources accessible to children who need them. A huge collection of easy to discover resources to bring stories to life, including bite size activities and new categories such as Writing Prompts, Activity Ideas and Picture Book Packs, can be found at www.puffinschools.co.uk

• Partnership with TWINKL: TWINKL is the trusted home of teacher-created learning, planning and assessment materials.Puffin are providing resources from their authors and illustrators to Twinkl’s home learning hub, which offers daily educational activities and a range of free materials to use at home  twinkl.co.uk/home-learning-hub

• Working with the BBC: Puffin have also signed up to offer content and activities for both a BBC Bitesize Daily broadcast and BBC Bitesize Online.

• Teach Primary’s ‘Author in Your Classroom Podcast’:Puffin authors, including Robin Stevens, Sam Copeland, Hana Tooke and Jamie Littler, will feature within Teach Primary’s ‘Author in Your Classroom Podcast’ series to inspire the next generation and will be available as they go live at www.plazoom.com

• YA Book Club: Launching soon on teen and YA channel: Penguin Platform – teenage and young adult reading will also be supported by a new weekly LIVE Online YA Book Club, connecting readers with their favourite YA authors. Keep an eye on Penguin Platform on YouTube, Instagram and Twitter for further information.

 • For further details visit www.puffin.co.uk/DreamBig and follow Puffin’s social channels for regular updates: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | #PuffinDreamer

• About the Author
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John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.

He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.

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Categories: Books, downthetubes News, Other Worlds

Tags: BBC, BBC Bitesize Daily, Dapo Adeola, downthetubes News, Humza Arshad, Nathan Bryon, Puffin, Puffin Books, Puffin Festival of Big Dreams, Puffin Schools, Puffin Storytime, Robin Stevens, Sam Copeland, TWINKL