Guppy Books - Independent award-winning children’s publisher

Who we are

Guppy Books is an independent children’s fiction publisher based in Oxford, UK. Small but mighty, Guppy was set up in 2019 by publisher Bella Pearson, We publish an eclectic, diverse and above all, entertaining list of fiction, graphic novels and highly illustrated books for children from the age of five to eighteen. In 2023, The Cats We Meet Along the Way by Nadia Mikail won the Waterstones Overall Children’s Book of the Year, in 2024 Pizza Pete and the Perilous Potions won the Week Junior Best Book for Younger Readers and in 2026 Evie and Maryam’s Family Tree won the Waterstones Best Book for Younger Readers. And Guppy titles have been shortlisted for all major children’s book prizes including the Carnegie Medal, the Costa Children’s Book Award, the Young Adult Book Prize and the Week Junior Awards.

Awards and Shortlistings

Latest Guppies

The Seeker and the Shade

Ellen Osborne

An intense, compelling romantic novel for young adults and old – enemies-to-lovers, slow-burn, first love, soul mates, and good versus evil feature in this story of a battle against the darkness, both from within and without… Inexperienced but determined, Connie is desperate to become a caster to save her village from the deadly Shade. Arrogant and privileged, Jasper is everything she detests. He intends to become a seeker like his father before him, and he has no time for a no-hoper like Connie. Thrown together at Blackwood, Connie and Jasper…

Young adult

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Amelia Cheeseheart Investigates: Ice Age Alarm!

Cat Weldon, Nene Lonergan

Another mystery for Amelia and her best friend, spider Webster, to solve! The third book in the comic-form mystery series for emerging readers starring sparky mouse aviator, Amelia Cheeseheart, and her best friend Webster, a banana-loving spider. Every evening after the museum closes, Amelia Cheeseheart and her best friend Webster go exploring. But when they arrive at the Ice Age Exhibit, all the Cave Mice have vanished and there’s a mysterious moaning monster on the loose! World-famous mouse adventurer Stilton Jones thinks he has all the answers, but Amelia…

5-8

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BIGG SCHOOL: Dare Devil

Lisa Williamson

The latest book in the warm, funny, critically acclaimed Bigg School series which follows a class of kids who have just moved up to secondary school. Welcome to Bigg School, where the extraordinary lives of ordinary kids take centre stage – like Ollie, who struggles under pressure to fit in, acting recklessly in a desperate bid to keep new friends. Ollie Marsden (also seen in DOUBLE DRAMA) has a group of friends and is super confident, but when his mates are banned from hanging out with him because he’s a bad…

8-12

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Fairytale Fiasco: Hansel and Gretel

Evgenia Golubeva and Myles McLeod

A brand new series from wife-and-husband team, Myles McLeod and Evgenia Golubeva, fairytales are turned on their head when Cleo and her friend Mark (Book Mark) join in the fun! Oh dear, Hansel and Gretel are lost in the woods! But Cleo is here to help, and she won’t fall for the nasty witch’s mean tricks . . . or will she? Can Cleo and her new friends escape before they’re baked into sticky toffee children? And will Cleo get home in time for her bedtime story? The Fairytale…

5-8

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See them all

Latest news…

June 2026

News

Drum roll… it’s that time again… Guppy Books is opening the portholes for the Open Submission Competition 2026!

Dust off those manuscripts, open your computers – and take the plunge if you think your book might be in with the chance of joining this pile of brilliant and…

5
min

June 2026

Evie and Maryam’s Family Tree shortlisted for the Week Junior Breakthrough Children’s Book of the Year!

We are thrilled that Janeen Hayat’s wonderful debut, Evie and Maryam’s Family Tree, has been recognised by the awesome Week Junior, a magazine which does so much to encourage and…

1
min

May 2026

Best Of All Worlds by Kenneth Oppel is the May Waterstones YA Book of the Month!

Not just content to be the Times Children’s Book of the Year, Kenneth Oppel’s extraordinary YA Best Of All Worlds has been chosen by Waterstones as their May YA Book…

1
min

May 2026

Evie and Maryam’s Family Tree wins the Waterstones Younger Readers Book Prize 2026!

We were so thrilled that the wonderful EVIE AND MARYAM’S FAMILY TREE won the Waterstones Younger Reader Book Prize at the ceremony in London at the flagship Waterstones Piccadilly –…

1
min