Puffin Press is a new list set to publish voice-led middle-grade fiction for the most confident and voracious young readers. Publisher Natalie Doherty explains.

Puffin Press is a new list at Puffin, dedicated to voice-led middle-grade fiction for voracious 9–12-year-old book-lovers, who want to be immersed, challenged, and swept away. Puffin aims to publish a book for every reader, and Puffin Press is our commitment to our most confident readers. By creating this list for them, we hope to supercharge their love of reading, and build them into the literary fiction readers of tomorrow.

The list will be small and carefully curated. It’s a varied treasure trove: with Puffin Press you’ll brave icy mountains, ancient pyramids and magical labyrinths, and even navigate the underworld itself. But what these books all have in common is rich, memorable characters, storytelling that’s both groundbreaking and timeless, and exceptional writing.

We have three wonderful launches in 2026. The first is The Night I Borrowed Time by Iqbal Hussain, which published on 1st January. It’s the tender, funny, uplifting story of eleven-year-old Zubair, who discovers that as the seventh son in his noisy, chaotic British-Pakistani family, he has inherited the power of time travel – and decides to use this new gift to try to mend his parents’ marriage.

In August, we have Spindlewood by Freddie Kolsch. Lilac Black is astonished to learn that she comes from a long line of gifted Seers, all of whom attended Spindlewood: a secret, prestigious boarding school for children with the power to see ghosts. Unfortunately, Lilac doesn’t have the gift herself – but curious to see Spindlewood for herself, she decides to play along. Once there, she discovers a perilous mystery to be unravelled – a mystery involving the long-ago disappearance of her parents.

Finally, in October, we publish The Seventeenth Quest by Elisabeth Kamakawiwoole. This is the story of Seventeen, a little robot whose database is full of poetry and stories, and who’d love nothing more than to be a knight on a quest. One day he gets his wish: he is tasked with finding humanity. But where to begin? After all, the last humans disappeared one hundred years ago. An unforgettable modern classic which readers are going to treasure alongside books like The Wild Robot, Pax, The Last Bear and Wonder.

Watch out for reviews of all these books in Books for Keeps.