Two ‘Harry Potter’s’ and one ‘Twilight’ book named by children as favorites of 2013

By Andrew Sims (@Sims) at 8:00 pm, February 9, 2013

Despite the fact that many of J.K. Rowling’s stories have been out for nearly or over a decade, two of the Harry Potter books are still enchanting young readers.

The Guardian surveyed students from nearly 2,000 schools in the United Kingdom to determine what kids are reading. The list, in no particular order, is as follows:

- Glass Houses by Rachel Caine
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
- Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
- Alex Rider: Crocodile Tears by Anthony Horowitz
- The Dead Girls Dance by Rachel Caine
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth by Jeff Kinney
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
- Mates, Dates, and Sole Survivors by Cathy Hopkins
- Survival by Chris Ryan
- Percy Jackson and the Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan

We’re happy to see that kids are still discovering Harry Potter. Personally, we wish they had voted for other Harry Potter books like Order of the Phoenix or Deathly Hallows.

Unsurprisingly, all of the books on the list are fiction. Other stand outs include the first Twilight book, which just wrapped its film series, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which is a hit amongst elementary school kids.

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http://twitter.com/PabloRV7 Pablo Ruiz V

Just curious, what’s everyone favorite Potter book? Mine is Prisoner of Azkaban, closely followed by Goblet of Fire
- Jason
  
  HBP
- somegirl91
  
  Prisoner of Azkaban!
- http://twitter.com/MusicandHouse J
  
  Deathly Hallows, closely followed by Sorcer’s Stone (partyly just because it is the first one that started it all)
- Sapph
  
  Order of the Phoenix. :) Also the movie is one of my favorites.
- Elphaba Thropp
  
  Goblet of Fire/Half Blood Prince!
- lookalivesteph
  
  HBP closely followed by PoA.
- http://twitter.com/akacj7 Caroline J.
  
  Goblet of Fire followed by a tie between Deathly Hallows and Prisoner of Azkaban.
- http://daydreamsandwhispers.tumblr.com/ Hermione Granger
  
  Reading everybody’s favorites here, something I love is the diversity–there isn’t one clear “best” book. Everyone has a different opinion. I think that’s part of Jo’s genius…the books never declined in quality. People’s favorites are based on which story resonated with them the most character-wise, plot-wise and just personal preference :)
- RumbleroarLuna
  
  Prisoner of Azkaban objectively, and Deathly Hallows both objectively and because it’s the last and wraps everything up, and Sorcerer’s Stone because it’s the first.
http://daydreamsandwhispers.tumblr.com/ Hermione Granger

Ooh, I agree that Order of the Phoenix and Deathly Hallows are my favorites… I couldn’t even pick which one I loved more.

Also, what age kids did they survey? That could explain why Prisoner and Goblet were more popular…
- http://twitter.com/Dillon_Mays Dillon Mays
  
  I’m about to turn 20 and I loved Prisoner of Azkaban. Order of the Pheonix is close behind.
  - http://daydreamsandwhispers.tumblr.com/ Hermione Granger
    
    Ah, sorry, I didn’t mean it like only young kids could enjoy the earlier books! I was just thinking that if it was elementary/primary school kids, perhaps some of them haven’t gotten to reading Phoenix/Hallows yet.
    - http://twitter.com/MusicandHouse J
      
      That’s a good point. I really am curious how parents handles kids reading Harry Potter these days. When I was younger I read the books as they came out, and therefore I was older for each one and at an appropriate age to understand them.
      I was nine when I read the first four books (and even then I remember thinking that Goblet of Fire was going to be rated PG-13 when it cam out in theaters) and while I think that’s an OK age to read those, I wouldn’t feel comfortable letting a nine year old read Half-Blood Prince or Deathly Hallows. It’s hard to stop a kid from reading the next book in the series if they are not old enough to understand it, now that its all out.
      - http://twitter.com/Dillon_Mays Dillon Mays
        
        My parents don’t care. For my little brothers and sisters, they’re fine reading it. My mother doesn’t think of it as scary. it’s imaginary.
      - http://twitter.com/MusicandHouse J
        
        I’m not do much talking about content being scary. I just don’t think a lot of 9 and 10 year olds would be able to fully understand the deeply layered and intricate plot of the later books. If course, that all depends on the kid, but I don’t think I would have understood all if Deathly Hallows at age 9 and I was an honor student. I would have been able to read the words, but nit grasp all the concepts.
      - http://twitter.com/Dillon_Mays Dillon Mays
        
        True. And I understand. I know my little brother, at the age of ten, read them because he liked how the movies looked. He read them and I could talk to him about the books, but I couldn’t go to deep. You are right, he couldn’t understand all of the depth, but he had some understanding.
      - http://twitter.com/MusicandHouse J
        
        I guess that’s what makes to Harry Potter novels so great. You can enjoy them at a young age for the basic story, but reread them a few years later and get a whole different meaning from them. Personally, I’ve reread the series three times (and seen the films more times than I can count) and each time I took a different message away. I also enjoyed certain books more or less during rereads depending on the point I was at in my life.
      - http://twitter.com/Dillon_Mays Dillon Mays
        
        I used to reread the books all the time.
      - http://daydreamsandwhispers.tumblr.com/ Hermione Granger
        
        I helped out/tutored in a 4th and 5th grade classroom last year (so 9 and 10 year olds), and as a class they were reading Sorcerer’s Stone. A few of them had gone way beyond that though, and were reading Order of the Phoenix or later… so I guess it depends on the kid.
        
        A good rule of thumb, though, is probably if a kid wants to read it and it keeps their attention, they’re ready (assuming it doesn’t have stuff you wouldn’t want them to read). Most of the time they’ll probably just get bored and put the book down if it’s too mature for them. That’s what I did with HP until I was 10… I could never get into Sorcerer’s Stone, and then all of the sudden I started reading Order of the Phoenix and got instantly hooked.
      - http://twitter.com/MusicandHouse J
        
        That’s a good point I feel like with so e kids though, if they want to read a book and can’t get through it because they aren’t old enough they will get discouraged. Hopefully though not being able to get through Ootp would inspire kids to work harder to learn and get to a level where they can read it.
      - Hermione Everdeen
        
        My sister read DH when she was seven. At the time, she loved the fantasy aspects. She’s reread the series multiple times since and has come to understand it much better (she’s now 13). In fact, it is her favorite series!
- Phoebe
  
  I think it was Primary School kids (11 and under) so it would make sense that those were the favorite books. :)
http://twitter.com/Dillon_Mays Dillon Mays

I live Prisoner of Azkaban, but there should be more Potter on this list. Poor kids don’t know what they’re missing.
http://twitter.com/RikuStark Ashley

I’m surprised to see the first two books from the Morganville Vampires series up there!
ravenclaw1991

Definitely not enough Harry Potter on this list and I find it disappointing that they’re all fairly recent books. I mean do kids seriously not read things like Narnia anymore?
- http://daydreamsandwhispers.tumblr.com/ Hermione Granger
  
  I’m still reading Narnia! Like seriously… can’t how many times I’ve read the whole series. A Wrinkle in Time (& sequels) are some of my all time favorites too. I hope these books aren’t lost on today’s kids!
  - http://twitter.com/Dillon_Mays Dillon Mays
    
    I enjoyed A Wrinkle in Time, but I’m afraid a lot of kids in our generation won’t understand. It’s just society these days.
    - http://daydreamsandwhispers.tumblr.com/ Hermione Granger
      
      I think a lot of my love for it has to do with the fact that I’ve probably related to Meg more than I’ve related to any fictional character, ever (at least in my early teens). All of her frustrations at her imperfections, at school…I felt like we were the same person. Plus I’ve always been a big astronomy/physics geek so the concepts presented (even if somewhat unrealistic) fascinated me.
      
      Also I should say I love the His Dark Materials trilogy too–particularly the last book. I guess I’ve always been a sucker for those stories that deal with time and death. Inkheart was another one of my favorites. (Tanglewreck is another fantastic children’s book about space/time/physics, so check it out if you’re into that kind of thing).
      - http://twitter.com/Dillon_Mays Dillon Mays
        
        Meg, based when the book was written, was an exact description of the average teenager. She was written very well. And I have yet to read those, but they’re on my list.
  - ravenclaw1991
    
    I’ve literally never heard of A Wrinkle in Time before. Should I be embarrassed? The funny thing about it is last night, I was watching an episode of The Big Bang Theory and Leonard was reading a book. I looked closely at the book and it said ‘A Wrinkle in Time.’
    - http://twitter.com/Dillon_Mays Dillon Mays
      
      It’s not bad. i had to read it for an English class and I enjoyed it. Haven’t read it in a while though. And I know it was on an episode or two, so that’s probably what you saw.
    - Hermione Everdeen
      
      A wrinkle in time is where the cliched quote ‘it was a dark an stormy night’ comes from.
- http://twitter.com/Dillon_Mays Dillon Mays
  
  I have never actually read Narnia. I’ve just never got around to them. But I do want to. Don’t get me wrong.
  - ravenclaw1991
    
    Well, technically I can’t say much about reading them as a kid because I didn’t read any of them until about 2007 or so.. I was like 16 at the time. Only because I didn’t know about them until they made a movie. I wish I had known about them when I was younger. I feel like kids are being deprived if they’re reading something like Twilight instead.
    - http://twitter.com/Dillon_Mays Dillon Mays
      
      I knew of them, but they became more popular with the movies coming out. Still haven’t read them. And yes, I know that they’re good literature compared to the likes of Twilight.
- Plat
  
  It’s only 10 books. 2 is quite a lot.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1745581155 Kallah Jean Turner

Order of the Phoenix is my least favorite. Don’t get me wrong I love Harry Potter like crazy, but I simply can not stand Umbridge. I just can’t read anything about her, no matter how hard I try. Prisoner of Azkaban is always my favorite Harry Potter book so I totally understand why that one is up on the list and Goblet of Fire is my third (after Deathly Hallows). Honestly, every HP book should be up there.
- http://twitter.com/MusicandHouse J
  
  Agree, every Harry Potter should be there. I love Goblet of FIre and Prisioner of Azkaban, but I feel like Deathly Hallows or Sorcer’s Stone are more deserving of a spot on the list. Honestly I think my favoirte book changes each time I reread!
  I never really liked Order of the Phoenix either. Not so much for Umbridge, I kind of enjoy hating her. My issue with that book was that it is just…so…long. I don’t mind reading long books, and appreciated the length and detail in all of the Harry Potter novels, but there is just so much that could have been left out of Order ot the Pheonix in my opinion (there’s a reason that the OOTP film is the shortest adaptation!)
  I’m kind of surprised Twilight is up there. It’s not exactly a children’s book. In fact, I don’t think anybody under the age of 13 should even be reading them. And while 13 year olds are still technically chidlren, that would be classified as “young adult” literature.
- RumbleroarLuna
  
  Agree with Order of the Phoenix being my least favorite book. And not even just because of Umbridge, even though I can’t stand her, but it’s just… angsty in general. And that angst is dragged on. The length doesn’t bother me so much as the angst, and the time it takes to get to Hogwarts, I guess. Kind of like Mockingjay…
kaitlin

Also happy that Percy Jackson is there. Say what you want about the movie but that is a GREAT book series.
http://twitter.com/dreamfall31 Kevin Slechta

Goblet and Azkaban are definately in my top 4 HP books. I’d rank them 1. Half-Blood Prince 2. Deathly Hallows 3. Goblet 4. Azkaban 5. Phoenix 6. Sorcerer’s Stone 7. Chamber
http://www.facebook.com/people/Robert-Monkman/502331043 Robert Monkman

People are aware that children like other books aren’t they? Plus at school you’re encouraged to read as widely as possibly to learn about different writing and find the genre you like. Plus children are less picky. Kids in my classes literally walk over to the bookshelf and just pick up a random book and read then theyll say if they like it. Saying this whole list should be harry potter is ridiculous. I am surprised by no narnia but tbh i havent seen it in schools. The issue may be who did the study because the most popular books ive read in class have always been the roald dahl books
upper_westsider

Prisoner of Azkaban & Deathly Hallows were my favorite HP books. They were also my favorite HP films.
- RumbleroarLuna
  
  They’re my favorite too, along with Sorcerer’s Stone because it’s the first one and just brings you back into the world of Potter.
http://twitter.com/SarahKHansen S.K.Hansen

“we wish they had voted for other Harry Potter books like Order of the Phoenix or Deathly Hallows”-> If these are young kids, like 8 – 12, many probably haven’t read that far in the series yet. Some yes, but it makes sense that most are still reading the books at the beginning of the series. The HP books are unusually long for children’s books, it takes a while to get through, plus they probably have to ask their parents to buy the books for them. It is easier to get a hold of the books, and read through them quickly when you are older. The other point is that Books 5 through 7, are arguably seen as more YA than Children’s books by a lot of readers, and this is a children’s book list, made by interviewing kids.
Elphaba Thropp

Oh dear lord, what is happening to the children of this world. I’m really glad Harry Potter is on the list…but Twilight? Really? I wasn’t allowed to read that until I entered high school!
Georgina

I just checked out the actual article, and their description of PoA goes, no joke: “The third novel in the Harry Potter series. An escaped mass-murderer from Azkaban causes concern at Hogwarts as Death Eaters are called in to guard the school.” If that was the case the series might have been a tad shorter.
- http://twitter.com/AntaraC Antara Chowdhury
  
  “Death Eaters are called in to guard the school” hahahaha omfg.
Glaciusx

Why are children reading Twilight, anyway? Definitely not what they need at that age.
- http://daydreamsandwhispers.tumblr.com/ Hermione Granger
  
  Or at any age :P
morgen71

It’s good to see the kids have some good taste!
Grace

right, cause Twilight is such a kid friendly book…

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Two ‘Harry Potter’s’ and one ‘Twilight’ book named by children as favorites of 2013

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