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Rachel Caine's Morganville Vampires series topped a survey of the most popular children's books, beating Harry Potter and Twilight
A book from supernatural series The Morganville Vampires has beaten Harry Potter, Twilight and Roald Dahl to be the most popular book with children today.
More than 300,000 schoolchildren voted for their favourite books during the 2011/12 school year, and Glass Houses, the first book in Rachel Caine's Morganville Vampires series, came top. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban came second, and Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight third. Another Morganville Vampires book also made the top ten: The Dead Girls' Dance was voted the fifth most popular book.
Classic children’s authors including Roald Dahl, Allan Ahlberg and Jacqueline Wilson didn’t make the top ten, but Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Percy Jackson and Anthony Horowitz’s Crocodile Tears did.
Children were also asked which authors they read the most (as opposed to what they enjoyed the most), and this time Roald Dahl, Horrid Henry author Francesca Simon, Michael Morpurgo and Jacqueline Wilson made the cut.
“This is a very interesting point,” said Dick Foch of Renaissance Learning who conducted the survey. “It indicates that there is a big difference between the books children enjoy reading and the books that are available to them or the books they are encouraged to read by adults.
“It’s clear that although books such as the Roald Dahl classics may still be very prevalent in schools, children’s tastes have very much moved on and it’s TV, film and vampires that are currently in vogue.”
More than 4 million books were read during the research, and children of school years 1-11 were asked to take part.
The most popular books voted for by UK schoolchildren:
1. Glass Houses: The Morganville Vampires by Rachel Caine
2. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
3. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
4. Crocodile Tears by Anthony Horowitz
5. The Dead Girls’ Dance: The Morganville Vampires by Rachel Caine
6. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth by Jeff Kinney
7. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
8. Percy Jackson and the Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan
9. Mates, Dates and Sole Survivors by Cathy Hopkins
10. Survival by Chris Ryan
The most read authors by UK schoolchildren:
1. Roald Dahl and Jeff Kinney (joint)
2. Roderick Hunt
3. Francesca Simon
4. Suzanne Collins
5. J.K. Rowling
6. Michael Morpurgo
7. Allan Ahlberg
8. Martin Waddell
9. Julia Donaldson and Jacqueline Wilson (joint)
10. Louis Sachar