About us

About Us (Header 4)

Best-Jane-Austen-quotes_Online-Desktop_Penguin

James-Baldwin

Marian-Keyes

haruki-murakami-320×320-1

Richard-Osman

Malorie Blackman

Lisa-Jewell

Charlie-Mackesy

Authors (Header 3)

Children&#039;s

Company

Discover

Fiction

Non-fiction

Penguin Classics

Penguin Shop (Header 5)

Useful links

Work with us

Alfie

A beautiful book filled with stories and poems featuring the irrepressible Alfie and his sister Annie Rose.

These stories make the perfect starting point for exploring weather with your own children

Shirley Hughes illustrated more than 200 children's books and is one of the best-loved writers for children, known for her beloved classics including the Alfie and Annie Rose stories, and Dogger. 
 
 
Shirley Hughes was born in West Kirby, near Liverpool, in 1927, and studied fashion and dress design at Liverpool Art School, before continuing her studies at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford. She started her career as a freelance illustrator in London, illustrating other writers' work, including Noel Streatfeild, Alison Uttley, Ian Seraillier and notably Dorothy Edwards's My Naughty Little Sister series. 
 
 
Shirley began to write and draw her own picture books when her children were young. Her first book - Lucy and Tom's Day - was published in 1960, and she followed it with, among others, Dogger, and the Alfie series. Her books include the wordless picture book Up and Up, collection of rhymes and poems Out and About, and for the very young The Nursery Collection. 
 
She wrote two novels for older children, Hero on a Bicycle, about a 13-year-old Italian boy during the occupation of Florence, and Whistling in the Dark, set during the Liverpool Blitz. Her memoir, A Life Drawing, was published in 2002. 
 
She also collaborated with her daughter, Clara Vulliamy, on the Dixie O'Day series; which saw Shirley with an illustrator for the first time with Shirley writing the text and Clara creating the illustrations. 
 
In 2020 she returned to her much-loved character, Dogger, with a new story Dogger's Christmas. 
 
Shirley Hughes has won the Other Award, the Eleanor Farjeon Award, and the Kate Greenaway Medal for Illustration twice, for Dogger in 1977 and for Ella's Big Chance in 2003. In 2007 Dogger was voted the public's favourite Greenaway winner of all time. She was Highly Commended for the Greenaway Medal for The Lion and the Unicorn in 1998. Shirley received an OBE in 1999 for services to Children's Literature, and a CBE in 2017. She was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was the first recipient of BookTrust's Lifetime Achievement Award. 
 
Shirley died in London in 2022.

Any old weather is Alfie weather and as Alfie demonstrates, there's always lots to do come rain or shine. Whether it's exploring frozen puddles on a frosty winter's day; wading through a cool stream on a hot summer's afternoon or taking a pretend journey to the North Pole, Alfie's world is a great place to be. This stunning collection of stories and poems will delight all Alfie fans!

Alfie Weather

A bumper collection of four stories and five short interludes starring Shirley Hughes' much-loved character, Alfie as he discovers the wonder of life in the great outdoors.

Reading The Big Alfie Out of Doors Storybook is like wrapping you and your child in a big, soft, security blanket . . . In capturing the essence of early childhood . . . no other writer/illustrator comes near Shirley Hughes

Alfie loves being outside and in this gorgeous collection of stories and poems he plays in the garden, camps in the countryside, shares a picnic on the beach, splashes in the paddling pool and lots more! Full of snapshots of family life, this is a book to treasure.

Alfie

Alfie Weather

The Big Alfie Out of Doors Storybook

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter