Classic books become London benches

Literary classics ranging from Peter Pan to The Day of the Triffids are being celebrated in a series of colourful illustrated benches.

Designed by artists and writers to look like open books, the 50 seats have been placed around London.

Cartoonist Ralph Steadman and How To Train Your Dragon creator Cressida Cowell are among those taking part.

The idea has been launched by the National Literacy Trust, external to celebrate reading.

"I am so excited to have designed a How to Train Your Dragon book bench and to be part of the National Literacy Trust's Books about Town, external campaign to celebrate the wealth of writing and illustrating talent in this country," said Cowell, who is known for illustrating her own books.

"I am hoping Books about Town will remind Londoners on the streets of the joy of reading books."

Steadman, who illustrated Lewis Caroll's children's classic Through the Looking-Glass in 1973, has reproduced some of these illustrations for one of the seats.

And globally successful book and play War Horse, external is celebrated on a bench designed by Rae Smith, the award-winning stage designer of the National Theatre's production.

Literary heroes such as Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Mary Poppins and Hercules Poirot also appear on benches for visitors to find by following literary trails.

The benches will be auctioned at London's Southbank Centre, external on 7 October to raise funds for the National Literacy Trust to tackle illiteracy in deprived communities across the UK.

The trust has also unveiled the findings of a study showing children's enjoyment of reading has increased.

The charity surveyed about 30,000 eight- to 16-year-olds for its report Children's and Young People's Reading in 2013 and found 53.3% of them enjoyed reading either "very much" or "quite a lot".

This surpasses the highest level of reading enjoyment the charity recorded eight years ago in 2005, which was 51.4%.