Karen MacPherson, children and youth services librarian at the Takoma Park Maryland Library, recently took time out from a busy summer reading club schedule to share some titles that are currently popular with patrons.
Rush for the Gold: Mystery at the Olympics by John Feinstein is checked out constantly. We have a display up featuring some nonfiction Olympics books and sports titles as well.
The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? is just flying off the shelves. People are always looking for Mo Willems – his picture book and early reader titles – and we rarely have any of his books in. Another, slightly older picture book that seems to be popular right now is Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein. I think kids have to be at a certain age to really ‘get’ all the humor, but they can still enjoy it if they’re younger too.
The most recent Newbery winner, Dead End in Norvelt, is going to be one of the more popular ones. It appeals to both boys and girls. I’ve been booktalking it a lot, and people have come back in to say that they liked it. We just added the new (and last) Artemis Fowl book to the collection [Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian], and it has also bumped up the older books in the series.
Smile by Raina Telgemeier is almost never in and we have multiple copies. That’s on the scale of Wimpy Kid or Rick Riordan for us. Everyone is
waiting for her new one, Drama, to come out in the fall. The Spy vs. Spy books [collections of the classic comic strip from Mad magazine] are wildly popular here. Kids are asking for them all the time.On the YA side, I’d say John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars is doing really well. It’s a crossover book and lots of adults have heard of it. His Looking for Alaska has been circing again recently, too. I see requests for Cinder by Marissa Meyer, and the Hunger Games and Pretty Little Liars books are still quite popular. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein is a new book for us and it has circed three times already. It got so many starred reviews; I think it will continue to do well.
