Identification points are listed only where two independent sources agree. Last reviewed 10 Nov 2026.
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Meg Rosoff's first novel was published in Britain by Penguin on 5 August 2004, ISBN 0 14 138075 6, so the British book is the true first. An American edition followed from Wendy Lamb Books in New York later in 2004. The novel won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize in 2004 and the Printz and Branford Boase awards in 2005, and was filmed in 2013. Look for the Penguin, London imprint, the 2004 date and that ISBN on the copyright page; a Wendy Lamb imprint means the American edition. No source we opened gives a jacket price or print run.
Penguin began as a reprint house, so most early Penguins reissue books first published in hardback by other firms, and a first Penguin printing of such a book is not the first edition of the text.
Read the full guide to Penguin Books first editions, decade by decade, and check your copy's copyright page against it. Our number line decoder reads the printing from the row of numbers.
We have not yet confirmed the issue points that tell this first impression from later ones. Until we do, compare your copy's title page and copyright page with the publisher, place and year above: any later printing or edition statement means it is not this one.
Know the points? Tell us. We publish them, with credit, once a second source agrees.
Penguin Books, London, in 2004.
Points of issue are listed only where at least two independent sources agree. Last reviewed 10 November 2026. Reviewed by Harriet Ellis; read how we check facts.
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Read the guide →7 min readTo identify a first edition, check that your copy is the first printing of the first edition. Read the copyright …
Read the guide →6 min readBook condition grading uses a six-step trade scale: Fine, Near Fine, Very Good, Good, Fair and Poor. Collectors grade the …
Read the guide →