Children's book news

It's the Easter Vacation here and our system is down for 2 days for maintenance. That's a chance to spend time rounding up the latest articles and children's book sites to hit my inbox, so here they are.

• Did you know The Very Busy Spider turned 25 last month? Read more on Eric Carle's blog.
• A new website has been set up to celebrate the work of children's author Rosemary Sutcliff who died in 1992.
• William Mayne died recently, aged 82, and the Guardian published his obituary. His award-winning children's books were somewhat overshadowed by his indecency conviction in 2004 so have not been popular in recent years.
• A good general site for finding websites for children's authors is Pickabook - it's actualy an online bookshop, but has this and other useful information such as a list of award winners.
• Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 format. It's also compatible with iTunes.
• Is reading an unpopular pastime? New National Literacy Trust findings from a major study of 17,089 pupils from 112 schools reveal that only half (50.6%) of young people enjoy reading very much or quite a lot. Read a summary here (includes link to full report).