• Minette Walters: New readers start here  Fascinating insight into the writing of "Quick Read" books. Quick Reads was launched on World Book Day 2006 to provide fast-paced, bite-sized books by bestselling writers for emergent readers, anyone who had lost the reading habit or simply wanted a short, fast read.

• Christopher Booker's The Seven Basic Plots  examines the basis of story telling in literature, film, and libretto. No one will ever see stories in the same way again. This remarkable and monumental book at last provides a comprehensive answer to the age-old riddle of whether there are only a small number of 'basic stories' in the world...

• Crack their code: the words kids don't want you to know. How can adults keep up with the language of the MySpace generation? To bridge the generation gap, Education Guardian offers a glossary of terms

page last edited March 20, 2007