Wendy Cooling taught English in London schools for twenty years before moving to head up the children's side of Booktrust, a charity working to promote reading. In 1992 she set up a pilot research project which has now grown into the national Bookstart programme. Bookstart aims to encourage parents and carers to read to their babies when they are very young. Wendy is now recognised as a children's book guru - she regularly speaks on radio and television and travels the world to talk about children's books. She has talked about books and reading around the UK and all over the world - in countries as diverse as the US, Australia, India and Taiwan - and has helped to launch Bookstart in Thailand and Korea. She loves to travel and has cycled round China, walked in the Himalayas and the Andes, and she continues to journey everywhere she can! She lives in London and loves the theatre and the music it offers - and, of course, she reads and reads and reads . . .