One of the "kaumatuas" of New Zealand children's literature has died.

Author and bookseller Dorothy Butler died at West Auckland Hospice on Sunday. She was 90.

Extremely well-respected by her peers, Butler's bookstore in Ponsonby became an institution for Aucklanders.

Although the store was bought by new owners in 1999, it continues to bear her name.

Butler was a passionate advocate for children's literacy and the importance of books in young people's lives.

She was also the author of dozens of children's books, several non-fiction titles and her autobiography.

In 1992 she was given the Margaret Mahy Award and in 1993 made an OBE.

Fellow author Tessa Duder, who herself was awarded an OBE, said Butler had an immense impact on her own career.

After writing the manuscript for her first book, Night Race to Kawau, she took it to Butler for feedback.

This proved invaluable and Butler also helped with the introductions to her first publisher Oxford University Press.

"You could say that I was fortunate enough to ask Dorothy for advice at the very beginning of my career and at the very beginning of what might quite well have been the golden age of children's literature in New Zealand.

"She wrote me a very, very wise and utterly realistic report on that book because I had no idea what I was doing."

Duder described Butler as a "kaumatua" of the children's literature scene and said her influence during the 80s and 90s was enormous.

New Zealand Book Council chief executive Catriona Ferguson said Butler's influence and reputation was felt not only in New Zealand but across the world.

Her first exposure to Butler had been when she was a staff member at a children's bookstore in London that stocked her books.

"It was one of the books the manager absolutely sold proactively to anyone who came in wanting books for their children, it was the bible of that sort of thing really."

Ferguson praised Butler as forward thinking in her work to push the importance of reading to children at a young age.

"We know a lot more now about the value of children reading but back then there wasn't a lot of research around to back those theories up."

A service to celebrate Butler's life will be held at the North Harbour Chapel of Dil's Funeral Services on Friday at 12pm.