School textbooks are on the way out – and pupils will lose so much with them

New generations will miss the memories bound up with the sight and smell of books, says Sam Leith, literary editor of the Spectator

Pearson shifts to Netflix-style subscription model for textbooks

Academic publisher hopes to convince students to subscribe to access online materials

The Guardian view on the creative self: it needs more than 15 minutes

Editorial: Britons need time and space to release their imagination. It would be good for them and for their country

William Gray obituary

Literary critic whose multidisciplinary perspective revealed the existential depth of fairytales and fantasy

How to Train Your Dragon author Cressida Cowell named new children’s laureate

The author and illustrator comes to role with ‘giant to-do list’, which includes making school libraries a legal requirement, and more time for creativity

Norman Stone obituary

Historian and controversial media commentator who taught at Cambridge, Oxford and in Turkey

Forest schools: is yours more a marketing gimmick than an outdoors education?

Some UK schools have merely jumped on the bandwagon of the popular Scandinavian idea, a new book argues

Alice Oswald elected Oxford professor of poetry by huge margin

Oswald will be the first woman to serve in the role, established three centuries ago

Nicholas Sparks defends diversity record at school after emails leak

Author of The Notebook and school’s co-founder says emails to former headmaster are ‘not news’ ahead of trial in August

What Cambridge University taught us about racism

Cambridge graduates Chelsea Kwakye and Ore Ogunbiyi on their guide for fellow students, published by Stormzy’s #Merky Books

Big Issue founder launches magazine to tackle illiteracy

John Bird says Chapter Catcher will do for illiteracy what the Big Issue did for homelessness

Horrible Histories: Terrible Tudors review – grisly gags at the Tower of London

Iffy insults fly, heads bounce around and the wiper of the king’s bottom takes a bow – all in the moat where alligators swam

Brushes with the law: how teaching art to women in prison changed their outlook

Mim Skinner spent two years teaching prisoners. Now she’s written a book, Jailbirds, to change our view of incarcerated women – and how we can support them on the outside