September 13, 2013

Roald Dahl’s books have amused and entertained a whole generation of children. Some of them have been made into blockbuster films; many of his characters have become cultural icons. To celebrate Roald Dahl Day (his birthday), we have taken a look at the enduring popularity of his books.

We have done some investigating to find out how popular Roald Dahl’s books are with students using Accelerated Reader. Information about the number of children taking AR quizzes over the last academic year (2012-2013) shows that Dahl is as popular with children as he has ever been. He makes up more than 10% of the top 100 most popular books. Dahl’s books have a broad appeal – many of them had a similarly high number of children reading them in the last year, as the pie chart shows.

Pie chart of AR quiz usage on Roald Dahl books
A pie chart showing how many times each Roald Dahl AR quiz was taken in 2012-2013.

But which books are the most popular? We’ve pulled together a list of children’s top ten Roald Dahl books:

  1. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
  2. The Twits
  3. Fantastic Mr Fox
  4. Matilda
  5. George’s Marvellous Medicine
  6. The Magic Finger
  7. Esio Trot
  8. James and the Giant Peach
  9. The BFG
  10. The Witches

Fantastic Mr Dahl

Fans of Roald Dahl will also be pleased to know that there is an Accelerated Reader quiz on Michael Rosen’s recent book all about him. Illustrated by Quentin Blake, who drew many of the memorable illustations to Dahl’s own books, Fantastic Mr Dahl is an accessible biography packed with humour and insight into Dahl’s life.

Fantastic Mr Dahl | Puffin | 978-0-141-32213-1 | MY | BL 6.0 | Quiz #223945

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