Holiday perennial favourites: Juvenile and YA

The holidays are fast approaching and if you want to know the Juvenile and YA titles that are tried and true over the festive season, look no further. Fortunately, we at BookNet Canada have made that kind of question our business.

Armed with over 10 years of data collected from BNC SalesData, we have compiled a list of English-language titles that have sold reliably well in the print market over the five-year period from 2012 to 2016. We searched for titles that ranked well in their category for the last eight weeks of the year, every year from 2012 to 2016. Once a list of titles was compiled, we sorted it by units sold in 2016 to ensure that the title rankings reflected each title’s current relevance. We should note that these titles may never have been bestsellers, but they have remained consistent, reliable sellers over the years. For the purposes of this post, we have combined results for the Juvenile and YA categories to bring you one list.

This is the last post in our perennial favourites series. (If you missed the first two, you can find them here: Fiction and Non-Fiction.)

Here are the perennial Juvenile and YA favourites over the holidays:

	Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Third Wheel Jeff Kinney Abrams, Inc. 9781419705847
	The Elf on the Shelf Carol Aebersold and Chanda A. Bell, illustrated by Coe Steinwart CCA & B, LLC 9780976990703
	Love You Forever Robert Munsch, illustrated by Sheila McGraw Firefly Books 9780920668375
	How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Dr. Seuss Random House Children's Books 9780394800790
	A Porcupine in a Pine Tree Helaine Becker, illustrated by Werner Zimmermann HarperCollins 9780545986632
	The Book Thief Markus Zusak Random House Children's Books 9780375842207
	The Very Hungry Caterpillar Eric Carle Penguin Young Readers Group 9780399226908
	Goodnight Moon Margaret Brown, illustrated by Clement Hurd Penguin Books 9780694003617
	The Maze Runner James Dashner Random House Children's Books 9780385737951
	The Paper Bag Princess Robert Munsch, illustrated by Michael Martchenko Annick Press 9780920236161

1. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Third Wheel by Jeff Kinney
2. The Elf on the Shelf written by Carol Aebersold and Chanda A. Bell, illustrated by Coe Steinwart
3. Love You Forever written by Robert Munsch, illustrated by Sheila McGraw (Canadian)
4. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
5. A Porcupine in a Pine Tree written by Helaine Becker, illustrated by Werner Zimmermann (Canadian)
6. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
7. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
8. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Brown, illustrated by Clement Hurd
9. The Maze Runner by James Dashner
10. The Paper Bag Princess written by Robert Munsch, illustrated by Michael Martchenko (Canadian)

Beloved Canadian author Robert Munsch is a perennial holiday mainstay for shoppers; two of his titles, Love You Forever and The Paper Bag Princess, sit comfortably in the top 10. There are two Christmas-themed books, The Elf on the Shelf and the Dr. Seuss classic, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, in the top five. Overall, the Juvenile and YA top 10 are more Christmas-oriented than the Fiction and Non-Fiction lists, possibly due in part to the demographic of this category.

We hope you have enjoyed our study on holiday perennial favourites. If you haven't already, check out our previous entries on the Fiction and Non-Fiction categories! Enjoy the holidays, and happy reading!