A new website dedicated to helping children make the most of books has been launched. The BookSeekers has been set up by Oxford-based husband and wife team Ian Shepherd and Bridget Martindale.

The site pulls together a vast range of books for children in one place, allowing youngsters access to titles they may not otherwise have heard of.

Over the last six months the couple, both 44, have researched almost 100,000 titles in 1,000 collections and uploaded them onto the website.

Users can search by category or keyword and there is also the facility to built their own collections which can be shared with others.

Book series are also pulled together and there is also a section helping parents of younger children explore books in a bid to help them learn to read.

As and when they are ready to read their next choice, they can buy the book through a link from BookSeekers to online retail giant Amazon.

A big part of the site going forward will be recommendations from users which will build up an even more far-reaching catalogue.

Mr Shepherd explained: “It is about planning what you want to read next. There is so much choice out there when you go to a book shop but it is difficult to navigatethrough that and you end up buying the same thing.

“The result is a bestseller chart dominated by the same small set of authors and books. But here we are building up specific knowledge of what kids want to read.”

The couple, who are parents to Jamie, 13 and 12-year-old Cara, also believe it will encourage children to read more.

Ms Martindale (pictured with her husband), an economist and student of child literacy, said: “Many kids do not engage with reading because they do not know what to read. We hope to give more access to it.”

As a business, Mr Shepherd is hoping to work with publishers and authors and generate revenue from advertising. The site also generates revenue from Amazon sales.

He is drawing on his experience as a former chief executive of online video games retailer Game and current role as a director of online recruitment firm Barracuda Digital.

The BookSeekers is the first business as part of a wider platform, Crowdsource, which aims to expand the same structure into other areas such as games and films.

Mr Shepherd added: “We are three weeks old but the reception has been very good from customers and the publishing industry.”