The first lines of Puffin classics – in pictures

From Nina Bawden’s Peppermint Pig to Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea, see the beautiful new covers of these re-issued Puffin classic children’s books – and read the immortal first lines

Main image: Nina Bawden’s The Peppermint Pig has been reissued for a whole new generation of readers. Illustration: Patrick Leger/Penguin

  • “July had been blown out like a candle by a biting wind that ushered in a leaden August sky” – Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals
    My Family and Other Animals

  • “The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-racked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards” – Urusla K Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea.
    A Wizard of Earthsea

  • “The Wolf sat gloomily in his kitchen” – Catherine Storr, Tales of Polly and the Hungry Wolf.
    Tales of Polly and the Hungry Wolf

  • “In the great hall of Hygelac, King of the Geats, supper was over and the mead horns going round” – Rosemary Sutcliff’s Beowulf: Dragonslayer.
    Beowulf: Dragonslayer

  • “Gaby and the rest of the gang were there in front of Fernand Douin’s house at the top of the rue des Petits-Pauvres” – Paul Berna, A Hundred Million Francs.
    A Hundred Million Francs

  • The dark wood was green and gold, green where the oak trees stood crowded together with misshapen twisted trunks, red-gold where the great smooth beeches lifted their branching arms to the sky” – Alison Uttley’s The Country Child.
    The Country Child

  • “Two figures stood in the darkness, a man and a boy” – Henry Treece, The Viking Saga .
    The Viking Saga

  • “Once upon a time there was a little girl called Bunchy, who lived with her grandmother in a cottage in the country” – Joyce Lankester Brisley’s Bunchy.
    Joyce Lankester Brisley

  • “There had always been otters in Farthing Wood” – Colin Dann’s The Animals of Farthing Wood: The Adventure Begins.
    The Animals of Farthing Wood: The Adventure Begins

  • “When the car stopped Andrew was the first to get out” – Jan Mark’s Thunder and Lightnings.
    Thunder and Lightnings

  • “Belbroughton Road. Linton Road. Bardwell Road” – Penelope Lively, The House in Norham Gardens.
    The House in Norham Gardens

  • “I remember the day the Aleut ship came to our island” – Scott O’Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins.
    Island of the Blue Dolphins

  • “Old Granny Greengrass had her finger chopped off in the butcher’s when she was buying half a leg of lamb” - Nina Bawden’s The Peppermint Pig.
    Peppermint Pig

  • “The Old Nurse was putting the children to bed by the fire” – Eleanor Fargeon, The Old Nurse’s Stocking-Basket.
    Eleanor Fargeon

  • “On a sharp autumn evening a boy stood waiting inside the high stone pillars which flanked the gateway of the Jones Academy for the Sons of Gentlemen and Respectable Tradesmen in the small town of Pennygaff” – Joan Aiken, The Whispering Mountain.
    Joan Aiken

  • “The middle of the night, and everyone in the house asleep” - Philippa Pearce’s The Battle of Bubble and Squeak.
    The Battle of Bubble and Squeak

  • “The end of the Easter holidays was drawing very near; only two more days remained before five hundred odd boys, whose ages ranged from twelve to nineteen, would discard their carefree clothes to don the well-pressed trousers, the speckled straw hats and black tailed coats which, from time immemorial, had been the garb of all Banchestians” – B.B, Brendon Chase
    Brendon Chase

  • “In the Land of Green Ginger there is a town called Marmalade, which is inhabited exclusively by guinea pigs” – Beatrix Potter, The Fairy Caravan. Hope you enjoy re-discovering some truly classic reads this summer! Find out more about Puffin classics here.
    The Fairy Caravan
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