Best-selling children's books of ALL TIME!
Good old Publisher's Weekly has been kind enough to produce a list of what it considers to be the best-selling books for the kiddies of ALL TIME!!! (the emphasis is my own). It's separated them into two different categories for your convenience. First you have the hardcover and then you've the paperbacks.
Now I want you all to take good long looks at these lists. Do you happen to notice any oddities in them? For me, the first indication that this wasn't your average Top 100 List when was I saw number 3 on the hardcovers. It's Toodle by a Gertrude Crampton. Now until this moment in time I had somehow managed to tuck Toodle far far back into the recesses of my memory. Now, however, it's come spilling out full force. Oh yes! Toodle! How could I have forgotten it! What really hits home after reading these lists is how frighteningly profitable the Little Golden Books turned out to be. That must mean there's some heir to the Little Golden Book fortune out there somewhere. I wonder how he introduces himself at parties...
No matter. The paperback section is just as full of surprises. Number 9 is Shane by Jack Schaefer. Shane?!? Everybody raise your hand if you were ever assigned Shane in elementary school. Anybody? Anyone? And was Mercer Mayer always this popular or have I just been blind?
All in all, the lists make for a fascinating look into what people are REALLY buying and not just what they say they are. And I guess they're all buying Shane. Go figure.
posted by fusenumber8 @ 9:30 PM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
Go back, Shane!
One thing about the Little Golden books - they're *cheap*, and accessible even to people who don't go to bookstores much. So I'm thinking of that list as books going to the homes of kids who might not otherwise have books, and that makes me happy.
And the sales of Shane were to western-movie fans who were relieved by the reading level. No, no -- this is actually one more example of a book being classified as a children's book because the protagonist is a child. About the one one which escapes is The Lovely Bones. -rams
And even then, "Lovely Bones" is read voraciously by teens. Can't keep that puppy on the shelf here! I've even had 12-year-olds ask me for a copy. I have never, however, ever had a kid ask me for "Shane".
It's probably because schools are still buying copies of "Shane" by the truckload.
Mercenary Mediocre should be fined for every single tree killed to produce a "Little Critter" book.
And Toodles is read a little differently in our household. We use it to teach my son that gay-bashing is not nice.
If you're artistic and want to waltz with the flowers and get off-track, so to speak, that's fine with Mommy and Daddy. Just ignore all those busybodies jumping out of bushes waving red flags at you. They're secretly gay too.
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