"Outside a dog a book is man's best friend, inside a dog it is too dark to read!" -Groucho Marx========="The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." -Jane Austen========="I don’t believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book."-JK Rowling========"I spend a lot of time reading." -Bill Gates=========“Ahhh. Bed, book, kitten, sandwich. All one needed in life, really.” -Jacqueline Kelly=========

Monday, June 20, 2016

Top Books in the GKHS Library, over the history of the school

We just completed the eleventh year that Graham-Kapowsin HS has been open. Out of curiosity on this last day of the schoolyear, I took a peek at the most popular books of all time in the library. Several of the titles were assigned by teachers but most were just popular books which students wanted to read.

                    Title                                                    Author                             Circulated #
1.
The Hunger Games
Collins, Suzanne.

353
2.
Collins, Suzanne.

299
3.
Coelho, Paulo.

294
4.
Fleischman, Paul.

236
5.
Zusak, Markus.

223
6.
Myers, Walter Dean.

201
7.
Green, John, 1977-

194
8.
Green, John.

194
9.
Dashner, James, 1972-

192
10.
Collins, Suzanne.

191
11.
Hosseini, Khaled.

190
12.
Westerfeld, Scott.

187
13.
Asher, Jay.

185
14.
Golden, Arthur, 1957-

183
15.
Meyer, Stephenie, 1973-

180
16.
Blacklaws, Troy.

172
17.
Anderson, Laurie Halse.

169
18.
Clare, Cassandra.

157
19.
Cashore, Kristin.

151
20.
Plath, Sylvia.

149
21.
Westerfeld, Scott.

145
22.
Alexie, Sherman, 1966-

141
23.
Paolini, Christopher.

140
24.
O'Brien, Tim, 1946-

139
25.
Haddon, Mark.
  134


Isn't this a fun and eclectic list, with a bit of a walk down memory lane? 

10 comments:

  1. There are a few of these I haven't read. I mostly understand why they are on the list, though. Except Seedfolks? Not popular at all, and I really am unfamiliar with it, although I have it in the library. It's going on my list right now! Interesting.

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    Replies
    1. Seedfolks was assigned by a teacher. It is good and a quick read but students don't tend to pick it by themselves.

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  2. That's a very cool list! I'm kind of surprised at #14. It's one of my favorite books, but seems long and adult for high school students.

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    Replies
    1. It is on the list of optional books for an Honors class. Those who select tend to like it, however.

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  3. I love this idea! I haven't done anything like this in my library yet, partly because the librarian I worked with was pretty set in her ways. But now that she's retired I can start looking at these kinds of things, and getting these kinds of reports! From my time at school, I think Hunger Games would be at the top, followed by the Divergent series, Fault in Our Stars, and the Cassandra Clare books.

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  4. This is awesome! Glad to see all the diverse options for students :). My high school library wasn't very good unfortunately. But we had an awesome district library, so I went there for all my needs.

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  5. Running this sort of reports is fascinating. Yes, which books have been most checked out? It certainly helps us decide what books we need to order. And, interestingly, there's no nonfiction on the list.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I ran the opposite report yesterday to discover which books have never been checked out. I am weeding a section of the library to make room for new books. There are no nonfiction on the list because I screen them out. I didn't want the list to reflect things like calculators, remote controls, and dictionaries...things teachers check out for the classrooms.

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  6. I'm totally guessing The Alchemist was assigned reading, lol! But this is awesome! It takes me back to my high school days, when Twilight had just come out. It wasn't super popular yet so no one put in on hold. I checked it out again and again and again and again... Embarrassing, yeah, but hey, I own it!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, The Alchemist was an assignment of sorts. It was one of the choices kids could select for their summer reading assignment. Other books on the list which were also teacher assigned: Seedfolks; Fallen Angels; Karoo Boy; The Book Thief; Kite Runner; Uglies; The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time; Memoirs of a Geisha; The Things They Carried; The Bell Jar. Hunger Games was also a summer reading selection but It was so popular it didn't need a push for kids to check it out. The book I am surprised isn't on the list is Divergent. It was also wildly popular but I think why it isn't on the list is that I never purchased lots of copies of it. For most of the books on this list I have 5+ copies. Looking over the list the book which has the fewest copies and has circulated the most (per copy) is Eragon. That is a consistent book. Steadily popular for eleven years. I only have two copies of it right now. I think I had three at one time.

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