The Current Top Circulated Books in my K-6 Library

most popular books from the first half of the school year, August through December, 2023

Well, it’s finally here! The most frequently checked out books, i.e. the most popular titles in our school library for the first half of the ‘23-’24 school year are listed below.

As you will see, they are primarily graphic novels. Anyone who has visited a children’s section of a library or bookstore recently probably won’t be surprised by this considering how the market is ever-growing. I have written up my own thoughts, along with some interesting research, on graphics, which I will be publishing here with you shortly. I have also listed some popular narrative novels and series below as well.

click this screenshot to go to the list!

I’ve put them all in a list on Bookshop.org to make things easy so you can pin, save, bookmark and come back to it if you are looking for some new ideas from the young readers in your own life (or yourself, of course!).

Graphic Novels

• Dog Man series by Dav Pilkey

• Raina Telgemeier's books (such as Sisters, Guts, Smile, etc)

• The Baby-Sitters Club Graphics (adapted by various from Ann M. Martin)

• Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney

• Allergic by Megan Wagner Lloyd

• The Baby-Sitters Little Sister Graphics (adapted by Katy Farina from Ann M. Martin)

• The Tryout by Christina Soontornvat

• Sunny series & Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm (a few of these deal with an older brother with a drug problem so I have a “6th grade level” label on them)

• Twins by Varian Johnson

• Apple Crush & Stepping Stones by Lucy Knisley

• Swim Team by Johnnie Christmas

• Marshmallow & Jordan by Alina Chau

• Kayla Miller's books (such as Camp, Click, etc)

• Wings of Fire Graphics (adapted by Barry Deutsch from Tui T. Sutherland)

• Big Nate series by Lincoln Peirce

• Pokèmon manga series by Hidenori Kusaka

• Sweet Valley Twins series (adapted by Nicole Andelfinger from Francine Pascal)

• Measuring Up by Lily LaMotte

• Jacky Ha-Ha (adapted by Andy Rau from James Patterson/Chris Grabenstein)

• Nat Enough series by Maria Scrivan

• Jurassic Jeff: Space Invader by Royden Lepp

• Katie the Catsitter series by Colleen A.F. Venable

• Bad Sister by Charise Mericle Harper

The only non-graphic novels that made our top 100 circulated titles list during the fall of this school year were the following (all very visual in nature as well):

• Who Would Win series by Jerry Pallotta

• Mo Willems books

• Creepy series books by Aaron Reynolds (such as Creepy Pair of Underwear)

• Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey

• Thea Stilton books* 

• Weird But True books by National Geographic

Popular upper level fiction books/authors in our library (not in our top circulated titles but still frequently checked out): 

• Warriors*

• Stuart Gibbs*

• Keeper of the Lost Cities*

• Katherine Arden

• Rick Riordan*

• Harry Potter

• Wings of Fire*

• Kelly Yang

• I Survived...*

• Also: Sports nonfiction/biography

The above popular series/authors are also on the list on Bookshop.org.

* Many of these books/authors now also have graphic novel adaptations out/forthcoming!\

I hope you enjoyed this book list. Let me know if any of these are popular in your family or reading community, or if you have any read-alike-type suggestions for my students.

Still unconvinced about the worth/merits of reading graphics (or need ammo for talking to skeptics around you)? Check out my next post... ;)