Top 10 for 2013 – Middle School favorites (Robin)
What you see above are the top 10 books in my school library for 2013. These books circulated more than any other books in the library during the 2013 calendar year. Lets look at some reasons why:
- Yes, they are all fairly popular, well known titles and authors. The Roland Smith book may be a bit of an outlier, but it was actually our #1 circulator in 2013.
- We have multiple copies of each of them (up to 14 of some.)
- Most importantly, all of them are either a Book for All Readers winner, or authored by someone who has another book that is a Book for All Readers winner. Click here for more information on my school library’s Book for All Readers program.
In fact, I, Q.: Independence Hall by Roland Smith was last year’s Book for All Readers winner. This year’s winner was Legend by Marie Lu. Hunger Games, Lightning Thief, and Angel Experiment are all three prior winners. You’ll see some of their sequels and related titles above as well. The first Diary of a Wimpy Kid title, Greg Heffley’s Journal was our first ever Book for All Readers winner. We originally had 14 copies of it…now we have 2, or I’m sure it would be on the list as well. The only other BfAR winner not represented on our Top 10 list is Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. It ranked at #11.
Sometimes programs work in ways you never expected. Originally designed to engage the students and give them agency in the materials selected for the school library, the BfAR program has now become a way to maximize the funds we have to reach as many students as possible.
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Filed under: Top 10s

About Karen Jensen, MLS
Karen Jensen has been a Teen Services Librarian for almost 32 years. She created TLT in 2011 and is the co-editor of The Whole Library Handbook: Teen Services with Heather Booth (ALA Editions, 2014).
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