All week we’ve run a series of articles on kids' and young adult books to coincide with the inaugural Children’s Book Festival this Sunday from 10am to 4pm.

Today we finish the series by following up on a story we ran last week, when the UK’s education secretary Michael Gove suggested school kids should be reading 50 books a year. The Guardian reports that some kids' book authors have reacted to the comments with scepticism. Anthony Browne has suggested that the government’s library closures give the lie to Gove’s comments, and Phillip Pullman, author of the ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy, agrees, adding, “Where are they going to get these 50 books a year from?” In a related article, the newspaper asked its readers to suggest reading lists for kids aspiring to meet Gove’s challenge – here are the responses.

We also liked this blog on dreams and writing by young adult author (and young adult) Steph Bowe, we were moved by these American inner city kids' stories.

Feel free to share your links to kids' book-related blogs and websites you like.

See you Sunday!

Two intriguing stories this week have triggered a renewal of the debate about free speech. It was feared Dr Yang Hengjun (known to friends as Henry), a Chinese-Australian crime novelist and prominent blogger on contemporary China, was being held captive by Chinese authorities after disappearing from an airport in Guangzhou. The writer, whom Greens Senator Scott Ludlam described as one of the most influential political bloggers in China, divides his time between the People’s Republic and Sydney. John Garnaut’s op-ed gave readers a personal insight to the story. Yang has since given the ABC assurances that he expects to leave China in a matter of days.

Nonetheless, a fog of intrigue continues to hang over the story, as if it were lifted from the pages of a political thriller. Yang’s political thrillers include the bestselling ‘Fatal Weakness’ series: Fatal Weakness, Fatal Weapons and Fatal Pursuit. The novels, published online, feature plots in which government corruption is endemic. An English-language excerpt can be read here. According to the writer’s agency, Creative Works, Yang’s novels “tell of an American plot to control China, set right before the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Too sensitive to be published in China, these Chinese language novels have been read by millions of Chinese online …” Yang adds a personal message: “I want to thank the Beijing authorities personally on my own behalf because without their strong suppression of freedom of publishing, I would never have become the first political espionage novelist in China.”

The New York Times reports Yang last blogged on March 27, the day he disappeared. “The entry criticizes Peking University in Beijing for a new policy that aims to re-educate students who are deemed to have ‘radical’ thoughts.” The Times report continues: "The Chinese government, in the harshest crackdown in years, is holding scores of human rights advocates, political writers, lawyers and dissidents. The roundup began in late February after calls for a revolution modeled on the protests in Tunisia surfaced on the Internet in Chinese.”

Earlier this year, another Chinese writer, Murong Xuecun, visited the Wheeler Centre and spoke of the difficulties of maintaining independence as a Chinese writer. Local crime writer and Wheeler Centre Fellow Andrew Nette has also blogged on the Chinese crime fiction scene, which is a popular source of critique of low-level and mid-level government corruption. And while the book industry in Australia worries about the future of publishing, Chinese writers are showing that, despite stringent censorship, the web can reach a massive reading public with a voracious appetite for controversy, courage and truth.