Artemis Fowl Voted UK’s All-Time Favourite Puffin
Eoin Colfer’s original tale of twelve-year-old criminal mastermind, Artemis Fowl, crowned the ultimate Puffin of Puffins

Artemis Fowl by best-selling author, Eoin Colfer, has been voted the ultimate Puffin of Puffins in a UK nationwide poll.

The vote, hosted online at www.happybirthdaypuffin.co.uk, asked readers to choose their all-time favourite Puffin book to mark the 70th anniversary of the world’s number one children’s publisher and celebrate the re-launch of the Puffin Modern Classics series.

Readers selected their favourite book from seven Modern Classic titles, one from each decade of Puffin’s spectacular 70 years, hand-picked as the most entertaining and inspirational children’s books of all time.

The titles are The Family from One End Street by Eve Garnett (1940s), Charlotte’s Web by E.B White (1950s), Stig of the Dump by Clive King (1960s), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl (1970s), Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian (1980s), The Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog by Jeremy Strong (1990s) and Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer (2000s).

Voting was kicked off by a spectacular sell-out Puffin of Puffins hustings event at The Hay Festival in June where Marcus Brigstocke, Jacqueline Wilson, Jasper Fforde, Cathy Cassidy, Jason Bradbury, Andy Stanton and Jenny Valentine each championed one of the above titles.

Over 10,000 votes were subsequently cast and Colfer’s bestselling story of twelve-year-old villain and child prodigy, Artemis Fowl, came top claiming a staggering 68% of the online vote. Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory came in second with 13% of the vote.

Eoin Colfer said: “I am beyond thrilled by this result. To be chosen by Puffin as a modern classic is a huge honour as it would be for any writer. For Artemis be in a collection with Stig and Charlie is a huge thrill, but to win a public vote as well, it's like two birthdays in one go. I have to say that this is my proudest professional moment. Thank you, voters.”

Action-packed and full of humour, the Artemis Fowl series has a serious cult following. English language sales of the Artemis Fowl titles now exceed a staggering 8 million copies and circa 20 million worldwide.

Colfer’s work has been published in 44 countries and he has achieved huge international critical acclaim in the media and book trade and is ranked alongside Philip Pullman, Jacqueline Wilson and Anthony Horowitz as one of the UK’s most popular and best-selling children’s authors.

Artemis Fowl won the WHSmith ‘People’s Choice’ Children’s Book of the Year Award 2002, The Children’s Book of the Year at the British Book Awards and was shortlisted for both the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year 2001 and The Blue Peter Book Award 2002. More recently, Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox won the Independent Booksellers Book Prize in 2009 and was shortlisted for the Galaxy British Book Award.

Francesca Dow, Managing Director, Puffin Books commented: “We just didn't know what result to expect as all the books received such a strong passionate response. But of course we're absolutely delighted that Artemis Fowl has won the Puffin of Puffins. Inventive, fast, funny and written in such an engagingly fresh way, Artemis Fowl is very much a book for the 21st century.

We see this in the extraordinary response Eoin Colfer receives from his fans and in the sales of the books. So what better proof of fans voting with their feet than this wonderful result?”

The newest instalment of the phenomenally successful series, Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex, will be published on 20 July by Puffin and launched via a special live webcast with Eoin Colfer at www.eoincolfervirtuallylive.co.uk. More than 10,000 children are already registered to watch.

The seven Modern Classic titles that appeared in the Puffin of Puffins vote have been re-jacketed and refreshed for a new audience and were re-launched earlier by Puffin in June.