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The kids' publisher the publisher is quickly contacting schools and local authorities across the United Kingdom after finding out that a website address printed in a well-known book series for kids had been redirected by a adult content site.

The company has recommended school libraries to take down the books after a URL printed in the Spy Dog, Spy Pups and Spy Cat series by author Andrew Cope was redirected to inappropriate material.

Puffin, an imprint of a major publishing group, stated it had immediately paused sales of the affected books, which are targeted toward children aged 7 to 12, and was working to have public collections remove the books from their collections.

A number of educational institutions in England confirmed that they had been sent notifications alerting them to the risk, including a warning that the redirected site included inappropriate material depicting children's characters.

An institution in West Sussex informed families: “We have been made aware of a safeguarding alert associated with the kids' book collection Spy Cat and Spy Pups authored by the author.

“These books contain a link to a online page to find out more about the character. The address has now been compromised and takes users to a pornographic website with no restrictions.”

A statement released on behalf of Cope and Puffin said: “In some editions of the Spy Pups, Spy Dog and Spy Cat series there is a reference to the writer Andrew Cope’s former website for the series, which was owned and managed by him.

“We believe an unconnected third party has recently gained ownership of the domain name and is employing it to display a separate site with inappropriate adult content. The site is not associated to the publisher or the author. We are asking people not to visit the site and ensure that children do not visit it either.

“We are treating this with urgency and are acting on this matter as a matter of urgency through the correct procedures to get this website removed. This is an in-depth and complicated procedure and will take time. We have temporarily stopped the sale and distribution of the publications whilst we address this situation.”

Spy Dog, the first in the series, was published in the mid-2000s, featuring the main character, a dog trained by the government agency and working undercover with an unwitting family. Eleven more books came after, and from the late 2000s until 2015 further series of Spy Cat and Spy Pups spin-offs were published.

Hampshire’s school library service sent out a alert to parents about the inappropriate content on the site. “If you have copies of these titles in your house, you might want to take a look and take the appropriate action,” it stated.