#Puffin Books

[oldschoolfrp]

"Rhino-Men are rather dull, bumbling creatures, not known for sharpness of wit." (Alan Langford illustration, Fighting Fantasy 24: Creature of Havoc by Steve Jackson, Puffin Books, 1986) As the 1973 Disney Robin Hood taught us, fantasy needs more rhino men.

[ofleafstructure]

Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer (Puffin, 1972) ; Cover art by Janina Ede.

"By bedtime all the faces, the voices, had blurred for Charlotte to one face, one voice."

[all-action-all-picture]

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. First published 1883. This is a printing from 1977 to tie in with a 4 episode BBC TV serial. The serial starred Alfred Burke and Ashley Knight. In supporting roles it also featured (among others) David Collings, Jack Watson, Patrick Troughton plus the Blake's 7 'Travis' duo of Steven Greif and Brian Croucher.

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

Aidan Chambers (editor) - Ghost After Ghost - Puffin - 1982 (cover and illustrations by Bert Kitchen)

[nyctalus-noctula]

finally got myself a physical copy !!

I would say I fell down a rabbit hole but then i would have to acknowledge the terrible pun and I am NOT doing that.

[the-forest-library]

when you find a beautiful copy of black beauty you have to buy it

[thefoxstone]

✨On a Midsummer Eve✨

“I idly cut a parsley stalk,

And blew therein towards the moon;

I had not thought what ghosts would walk

With shivering footsteps to my tune.

I went, and knelt, and scooped my hand

As if to drink, into the brook,

And a faint figure seemed to stand

Above me, with the bygone look.

I lipped rough rhymes of chance, not choice,

I thought not what my words might be;

There came into my ear a voice

That turned a tenderer verse for me.”

- Thomas Hardy

✨The Faery Beam Upon You✨

“The faery beam upon you,

The stars to glister on you;

A Moon of light,

In the Noon of night,

Till the Fire-drake hath o'er-gone you.

The Wheel of Fortune guide you,

The Boy with the Bow beside you,

Run aye in the way,

Till the Bird of day,

And the luckier lot betide you.”

- Ben Jonson (From The Gypsies Metamorphos’d)

[shelbycarpenter]

[shadygreyest]

Devastated to discover a leak in the roof has infiltrated a bookshelf and destroyed some of my old paperbacks of the Narnia series. They’re beyond repair, musty and mouldy. I read and reread these so many times. I coloured in all the pictures. I’ve kept them all these years, all these decades. Farewell beloved childhood companions.

[bookymcbookface]

The Tombs of Atuan, by Ursula K Le Guin

[forever70s]

The Puffin Book of Magic by Norman Hunter; cover art by Jill McDonald

[downthetubes]

Puffin Books has announced their Graphic Novel Competition, an initiative that aims to seek out, nurture, and publish new graphic novel creators from communities under-represented on the nation’s bookshelves

[ofleafstructure]

The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner. Wrap-around cover art by George Worsley Adamson.

[earhartsease]

godsdamn british children's books in the 70s did not fuck about - here's a section page from The Puffin Book Of Magic Verse (Puffin was* an imprint of Penguin Books intended for kids to early teens) and just look at this casual glory

artist Barbara Swiderska

*well Puffin still is, but Penguin now belongs to a bigger publishing house so we don't know what their current state is

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

Isaac Asimov - The Heavenly Host - Puffin - 1979 (cover painting by Lynn Barrable)

[blossomingbooks]

Book Review: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl

This week's blossoming book review is Roald Dahl's famous children's story Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)!

Ever since I wrote my masters' dissertation on Lemony Snicket I've been wanting to read something by Roald Dahl, since he was such an influence for Daniel Handler. And, because my childhood weekends were spent rewatching the 2005 film adaptation of his Charlie and the Chocolate Factory — which I've been revisiting, alongside with the 1971 version, in view of the release of Wonka —, it seemed just right to start with this one.

The Chocolate Factory in movies

Having these film adaptations as references, it's hard not to go into a comparative analysis, but I do want to go over some points because reading the original text gave me a new appreciation for the film that was so dear for me in childhood.

Although the 1971 adaptation is widely beloved and even taken a lot as the canonic reference of the Wonka universe, it must be said that Tim Burton's version is much more considerate of the original source — starting with the title itself, which focuses on Charlie and not on the character of Willy Wonka.

Roald Dahl himself didn't appreciate the first adaptation, which is understandable considering that — with the exception of some chilling moments such as "The Wondrous Boat Ride", recited by Gene Wilder word for word with a delivery that borders the psychopathic — most of the film has a very wholesome tone. The book, although clearly written for children with a very accessible and childish writing style, has some deeply dark humor undertones. A key example of this are the musical numbers, which are also much more well adapted in the 2005 version. Although "Oompa loompa doompety doo" became an iconic reference in our collective memory, the songs from the 1971 film are much simpler and loosely-based on the text. On the other hand, Roald Dahl is actually credited as a writer in Danny Elfman's 2005 soundtrack, which uses many verses from the songs written in the books.

The expurgation of Roald Dahl

The downside of only getting a Roald Dahl book in 2023 is that I accidently read an expurgated version of his work... Expurgation is a form of "politically correct" censorship, in which editors purge anything that's considerate inappropriate or offensive from an artistic work. This has been massively done to Roald Dahl's work last year by Puffin Books. This feels particularly wrong after learning that Dahl himself warned his publishers before dying against "so much as change a single comma in one of my books".

However, it doesn't seem like he was completely insensitive, taking into account his own 1973 revision which changed the ethnicity of the Oompa Loompas (who previously recalled African slaves a bit too much). In my opinion, this type of revision is understandable and very valid; however, what happened with Puffin Books seems a bit too extreme: they removed words like "fat", "mad", "crazy" and "queer", references to toy guns and to corporal punishment. Even if some of those concepts might be used in an offensive and problematic way, I can't see this kind of censorship as very useful, since all it does is whitewash the work, devoiding the reader of critical thinking and counter-productively absolving the author of his wrongdoings. I understand that it gets trickier considering the younger target audience, but I personally can't help but feel like I've been deprived of something by having read this version.