The Nation's Favourite Children's Books

TOP OF THE POTTS!

Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone announced nation’s favourite children’s book after thousands vote

Reading charity Booktrust is today pleased to reveal that J.K. Rowling'sHarry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is the nation’s favourite children's book, with over 24,000 votes cast this autumn.

To mark Children’s Book Week 2013, proudly supported by Kindle, book fans of all ages were invited to pick their ultimate storybook to read before the age of 14, with a mixture of modern greats and beloved classics making the top ten. Already marking its territory as a hugely successful film franchise,The Hunger Games finished second behind the debut Harry Potter book. Classics such asThe BFG and The Very Hungry Caterpillar also ranked highly, both making the top ten.

The win adds yet another accolade to J.K. Rowling's magical creation, whose unrivalled success made her the world's first and only billionaire author. The adventures of the Gryffindor wizard inspired a whole generation of young and adult readers, with over 400 million copies of the book sold worldwide. The resulting films also proved critically and commercially successful and launched the careers of several British actors. And the proliferation of lucrative DVDs, toys, video games, memorabilia, and even theme park attractions contribute to the total global value of the franchise at $15bn.

Starting with 500 titles, Booktrust experts whittled them down to compile the list of 100 books every child must read before 14, giving bookworms the unenviable task of choosing their most-loved novel.

Titles were also split into age categories.The Very Hungry Caterpillar topped the 0-5 age group and Roald Dahl'sThe BFG won with 6-8 year olds. The top two reads overall,Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and The Hunger Games each triumphed in the 9-12 and 12-14 categories before total votes determined the final results.

The most popular titles show that although classic storytelling remains popular with younger children, modern franchises have had a real impact on older readers. Of the books in the top ten, nine have since been made into huge film adaptations.

Claire Shanahan, Head of Arts, Booktrust, said: "As the biggest ever grossing literary franchise, kids and adults alike clearly can't get enough of Harry Potter. It’s a worldwide phenomena - it has captured the imaginations of a generation of readers who have grown up in love with Harry or Hermione, want to be friends with Ron, and are truly terrified by Voldemort.Even when up against heavyweights such as Dahl and Tolkien, Rowling ‘s creation remains the nation’s firm favourite.”

“We’re thrilled that the public have voted in their thousands. Lists such as this are a great way of celebrating the outstanding quality of past and present authors and illustrators. Plus Christmas and the New Year is a fantastic time to get our children excited about books! ”

Emma Hopkin, MD Childrens and Educational, Bloomsbury Publishing, said:“We are thrilled that children have voted Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone as the nation’s favourite children’s book. It is wonderful that Harry Potter can still hold the same magic for children now as it did when it was first published sixteen years ago. Lists like this are such a brilliant way to engage debate and discussion of books for children and to reflect the sheer quality and variety that young readers can enjoy today.”

Jorrit Van der Meulen, Vice President, Amazon Kindle EU, said: “Everyone remembers their favourite childhood book. The public have voted in droves for their most-loved stories and it is fantastic to see such enthusiasm and interest in reading – a passion that we share at Amazon.”

The final top ten is as follows:

Overall Top 10

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

The Hunger Games

The BFG

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Winnie-the-Pooh

The Cat in the Hat

The Fellowship of the Ring

Charlotte's Web

Northern Lights

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

 

The 100 selected titles:

Title	Author	Age range
The Cat in the Hat	Dr Seuss	0 - 5 years
Where the Wild Things Are	Maurice Sendak	0 - 5 years
The Tiger Who Came to Tea	Judith Kerr	0 - 5 years
The Very Hungry Caterpillar	Eric Carle	0 - 5 years
The Elephant and the Bad Baby	Elfrida Vipont	0 - 5 years
Meg and Mog	Helen Nicholl	0 - 5 years
Dogger	Shirley Hughes	0 - 5 years
Each Peach Pear Plum	Allan Ahlberg	0 - 5 years
Would You Rather?	John Burningham	0 - 5 years
The Snowman	Raymond Briggs	0 - 5 years
Not Now, Bernard	David McKee	0 - 5 years
Where's Spot?	Eric Hill	0 - 5 years
Dear Zoo	Rod Campbell	0 - 5 years
Gorilla	Anthony Browne	0 - 5 years
Hairy Maclary From Donaldson's Dairy	Lynley Dodd	0 - 5 years
The Jolly Postman	Allan Ahlberg	0 - 5 years
Princess Smartypants	Babette Cole	0 - 5 years
I Want My Potty	Tony Ross	0 - 5 years
We're Going on a Bear Hunt	Michael Rosen	0 - 5 years
I Will Not Ever Never Eat a Tomato	Lauren Child	0 - 5 years
Room on a Broom	Julia Donaldson	0 - 5 years
Lost and Found	Oliver Jeffers	0 - 5 years
Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears	Emily Gravett	0 - 5 years
Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes	Mem Fox	0 - 5 years
I Want My Hat Back	Jon Klassen	0 - 5 years
Pippi Longstocking	Astrid Lindgren	5 - 7 years
Winnie-the-Pooh	A. A. Milne	6 - 8 years
The Story of Babar	Jean de Brunhoff	6 - 8 years
Little House in the Big Woods	Laura Ingalls Wilder	6 - 8 years
The Enchanted Wood	Enid Blyton	6 - 8 years
Five on a Treasure Island	Enid Blyton	6 - 8 years
Finn Family Moomintroll	Tove Jansson	6 - 8 years
My Naughty Little Sister	Dorothy Edwards	6 - 8 years
Charlotte's Web	EB White	6 - 8 years
A Bear Called Paddington	Michael Bond	6 - 8 years
Asterix the Gaul	Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo	6 - 8 years
Flat Stanley	Jeff Brown	6 - 8 years
The Worst Witch	Jill Murphy	6 - 8 years
Mister Magnolia	Quentin Blake	6 - 8 years
The Queen's Nose	Dick King-Smith	6 - 8 years
The True Story of the Three Little Pigs	Jon Scieszka	6 - 8 years
Amazing Grace	Mary Hoffman	6 - 8 years
The Adventures of Milly Molly Mandy	Joyce Lankester Brisley	6 - 8 years
Horrid Henry	Francesca Simon	6 - 8 years
The Sheep-Pig	Dick King Smith	6 - 8 years
Clarice Bean, That's Me	Lauren Child	6 - 8 years
That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown	Cressida Cowell	6 - 8 years
Diary of a Wimpy Kid	Jeff Kinney	6 - 8 years
The BFG	Roald Dahl	6- 8 years
The Arrival	Shaun Tan	6- 8 years
The Adventures of Tin Tin	Herge	9 - 12 years
Swallows and Amazons	Arthur Ransome	9 - 12 years
Ballet Shoes	Noel Streatfield	9 - 12 years
The Hobbit	J R R Tolkien	9 - 12 years
The Little Prince	Antoine de Saint-Exupéry	9 - 12 years
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe	C. S. Lewis	9 - 12 years
The Borrowers	Mary Norton	9 - 12 years
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase	Joan Aitken	9 - 12 years
Stig of the Dump	Clive King	9 - 12 years
Carrie's War	Nina Bawden	9 - 12 years
Goodnight Mr Tom	Michelle Magorian	9 - 12 years
The Witches	Roald Dahl	9 - 12 years
Matilda	Roald Dahl	9 - 12 years
Truckers: The First Book of the Nomes	Terry Pratchett	9 - 12 years
The Story of Tracy Beaker	Jacqueline Wilson	9 - 12 years
Flour Babies	Anne Fine	9 - 12 years
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone	J. K. Rowling	9 - 12 years
Skellig	David Almond	9 - 12 years
Holes	Louis Sachar	9 - 12 years
Artemis Fowl	Eoin Colfer	9 - 12 years
Journey to River Sea	Eva Ibbotson	9 - 12 years
Private Peaceful	Michael Morpurgo	9 - 12 years
Millions	Frank Cottrell Boyce	9 - 12 years
Once	Morris Gleitzman	9 - 12 years
A Monster Calls	Patrick Ness	9 - 12 years
I Capture the Castle	Dodie Smith	12 - 14 years
The Fellowship of the Ring	J R R Tolkien	12 - 14 years
The Owl Service	Alan Garner	12 - 14 years
Watership Down	Richard Adams	12 - 14 years
Forever	Judy Blume	12 - 14 years
The Ruby in the Smoke	Philip Pullman	12 - 14 years
Northern Lights	Philip Pullman	12 - 14 years
Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging	Louise Rennison	12 - 14 years
Witch Child	Celia Rees	12 - 14 years
Coram Boy	Jamila Gavin	12 - 14 years
Kite Rider	Geraldine McCaughrean	12 - 14 years
Mortal Engines	Philip Reeve	12 - 14 years
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time	Mark Haddon	12 - 14 years
Looking for JJ	Anne Cassidy	12 - 14 years
Stormbreaker	Anthony Horowitz	12 - 14 years
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas	John Boyne	12 - 14 years
Noughts and Crosses	Malorie Blackman	12 - 14 years
The Graveyard Book	Neil Gaiman	12 - 14 years
The Knife of Never Letting Go	Patrick Ness	12 - 14 years
Revolver	Marcus Segdwick	12 - 14 years
Life: An Exploded Diagram	Mal Peet	12 - 14 years
Maggot Moon	Sally Gardner	12 - 14 years
Junk	Melvin Burgess	12 - 14 years. At top end of age band
How I Live Now	Meg Rosoff	12 - 14 years. At top end of age band
The Hunger Games	Suzanne Collins	12 - 14 years. At top end of age band

Red House Children's Book Award Shortlist

The children of the Federation of Children’s Book Groups have been busy reading all year and now their favourites have been selected as the shortlist for the 2014 Red House Children’s Book Award.
The shortlisted books are:

Books for Younger Children
Superworm – Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler (Scholastic)
Walter and The No Need To Worry Suit – Rachel Bright (HarperCollins)
How To Hide A Lion – Helen Stephens (Alison Green Books)
Hippospotamus – Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross (Andersen)

Books for Younger Readers
The Land of Neverbelieve – Norman Messenger (Walker)
Atticus Claw Breaks The Law – Jennifer Gray (Faber & Faber)
Claude In The Country – Alex T Smith (Hodder Children’s Books)

Books for Older Readers
Killing Rachel – Anne Cassidy (Bloomsbury)
The 5th Wave – Rick Yancey (Penguin)
W.A.R.P.: The Reluctant Assassin – Eoin Colfer (Puffin)

Book your Place at Book Week Scotland 2013

With only a few weeks to go until Scotland’s second national celebration of books and reading, communities across the country are gearing up for a week-long programme of events, activities and projects that will run from 25 November to 1 December, 2013.

Building on the success of last year’s inaugural Book Week Scotland, Scottish Book Trust has been working with a range of partners to deliver a fun-packed week, with the aim of bringing Scots of all ages and from all walks of life together. A diverse programme of over 400 free book-related events will be held across the country, with an emphasis on celebrating whatever you enjoy reading, be it a book, comic, blog or newspaper. Author Ambassadors Nick Sharratt, Shari Low and Ryan Van Winkle will be leading the push to spread the joy of reading.

There really is something for all the family during Book Week Scotland, from Designing your own Book Cover, listening to Scottish Tales of Adventure, Teddy Bear Sleepovers, Christmas-themed Creative Workshops and much more. Pre-school children are spoilt for choice with Bookbug sessions and storytelling taking place across the country, whilst for older children there are a whole host of creative activities to participate in. These include Story-weaving with hands-on Celtic Quilt-making, Dickens on Screen, Chatterbooks reading group and a Character Treasure Hunt. There will also be visits from Children’s authors including Matthew Fitt, Lari Don, Robin Mitchell and the infamous Etherington Brothers, to name but a few.

In addition to this, three free picture books will be gifted to every Primary 1 pupil, taken from the shortlist for the Scottish Children’s Book Awards 2013: Paper Dolls by Julia Donaldson and Rebecca Cobb, What's the Time Mr Wolf by Debi Gliori and Jumblebum by Chae Strathie and Ben Cort. Scottish children’s illustrator and author Mairi Hedderwick will also be bringing her most famous character, Katie Morag, to life for children across Scotland, during a special live broadcast in partnership with the BBC on 28 November.

What’s more, 150,000 free copies of a short story and poem collection written by Scottish people, Treasures, will be distributed throughout the week via bookshops, libraries and other channels. This specially made book contains competition-winning entries that were inspired by their authors’ most treasured belongings, taking a variety of forms including poems, diary entries and stories. Contributions include previously untold accounts of unexpected objects such as a steamship, a VHS tape, a rucksack and a chip of concrete. There are also some well known contributors including John and Carole Barrowman, Richard Holloway and Denise Mina.

If you who have your own ideas about how you’d like to celebrate Book Week Scotland, schools, families and communities are being encouraged to host a Big
Book Bash, which can take any shape or form, at any time or place. This might be as simple as a book swap or a storytelling group, or as elaborate as a literary fancy dress party. You can sign up online at www.bookweekscotland.com to receive a free resource pack full of tips and ideas to help get you started organising your very own Big Book Bash.

You can also get involved online by voting for your Favourite Scottish Book from the last 50 years. The top 10 books, chosen from a shortlist of 50 titles, will be announced at the end of Book Week Scotland. Also revealed during the week will be three Reading Heroes; individuals nominated by the public for their inspiring reading activities in each of the following categories: Most Inspiring Reader, Most Committed Reader, and Most Unusual Reading Habit. The chosen hero from each category will be asked to create a short film about their passion for reading.

Perhaps most anticipated of all are the five large art installations due to be unveiled in communities across Scotland during the week, a project that aims to inspire people during their everyday lives to pick up a book, and maybe have a go at writing one themselves. This ambitious project is a fantastic highlight to what will have been a very exciting week focusing on the enjoyment of books, reading and writing.

For more information about Book Week Scotland 2013 and how you and your family can get involved and be part of the fun, visit www.bookweekscotland.com, where you can find information about all the events taking place in your local area, vote for your favourite Scottish book, and discover a whole host of resources and ideas to help you celebrate and share whatever it is you love to read.