‘Girl Online’ voted UK schoolchildren’s favourite book; Kinney favourite author

In the UK, YouTube personality Zoella’s Girl Online (Puffin) has been voted the most popular book by secondary school children, reports the Guardian. The finding was released as part of the eighth annual What Kids Are Reading survey, the widest study of British children’s reading habits. The study found that at the primary level, the most-read book was The Twits (Roald Dahl, Puffin) and the most popular was The Long Haul: Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Jeff Kinney, Puffin). Kinney’s The Long Haul was also the most read among secondary school students, with Girl Online being voted most popular. Overall, the most popular author was Kinney, followed by Walliams, Roderick Hunt, Dahl and Francesca Smith. Professor of educational and social research Keith Topping, who authored the report, said the findings revealed reading levels for primary school-aged children were ‘at a much higher level of difficulty and with a greater level of comprehension than those recommended to them’, and suggested that children looked to their peers for recommendations of challenging books rather than teachers or librarians. The What Kids Are Reading survey is conducted by education software provider Renaissance Learning, and this year measured 725,369 children’s reading habits in more than 3,300 schools around the UK.

Category: International news Junior