World Book Day celebrated with a survey of the changing tastes of teen reading
A survey to mark World Book Day 2011, the UK’s largest celebration of books and
reading, has uncovered the reading habits of teenagers over the last 50 years. To tie in with a new campaign to get teenagers reading, World Book Day has asked adults about their reading habits as teenagers, and compared them to teenagers today.
| · The Lord of the Rings and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy are the top books for teens across the generations · Harry Potter heroine Hermione Granger and Twilight teen wolf Jacob Black are top book crush for teenagers, while adults lusted after Mr Darcy and Lady Chatterley · For both the majority of adults and teenagers, books are their favourite reading material |
The survey reveals the top 10 books enjoyed by teenagers now and in the past. The
favourite read of adult respondents when they were teenagers was The Secret Diary of
Adrian Mole, while the Harry Potter series is the overwhelming favourite for teenagers
today, favourite for almost a third of respondents. The Lord of the Rings, The Hitchhiker’s
Guide to the Galaxy, The Diary of Anne Frank and 1984 are the four titles that feature in
both the top 10 of teenagers today and of adults when they were teenagers, showing the
enduring popularity of these classic novels.
Top 10 books most enjoyed by adults when they were teenagers
1. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, by Sue Townsend 10.2%
2. The Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien 9.5%
3. Novels by Stephen King 8.2%
4. Novels by Agatha Christie 7.6%
5. = The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams 6.1%
5. = The James Bond novels by Ian Fleming 6.1%
5. = 1984, by George Orwell 6.1%
8. Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë 5.3%
9. The Diary of Anne Frank, by Anne Frank 5.2%
10. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee 4.2%
Top 10 favourite books of teenagers today
1. The Harry Potter series, by JK Rowling 30.5%
2. The Twilight series, by Stephenie Meyer 14.1%
3. The Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien 9.1%
4. The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown 5.1%
5. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams 4.6%
6. The Curious Incident of the dog in the night-time, by Mark Haddon 4.0%
7. Noughts & Crosses, by Malorie Blackman 3.8%
8. The Diary of Anne Frank, by Anne Frank 3.2%
9. = 1984, by George Orwell 2.2%
9. = The His Dark Materials trilogy, by Phillip Pullman 2.2%
In the survey teenagers and adults also reveal their top teen book crushes. Adults
confess that the book characters they would have most liked to have gone on a date with
as a teenager were Mr Darcy from Pride and Prejudice, and Lady Chatterley. Teenagers
today chose Harry Potter heroine Hermione Granger and teen wolf Jacob Black from the
Twilight series. Mr Darcy from Pride and Prejudice and Arwen from The Lord of the
Rings bridge the generation gap and appear in the top 5 and top 10 of both lists
respectively.
Top 10 book characters that adults would most have liked to go on a date with when they
were teenagers
1. Mr Darcy, from Pride and Prejudice 11.9%
2. Lady Chatterley, from Lady Chatterley’s Lover 9.5%
3. James Bond, from the James Bond novels 8.8%
4. Mr Darcy, from Bridget Jones’s Diary 7.3%
5. Miss Moneypenny, from the James Bond novels 6.3%
6. Aragorn, from The Lord of the Rings 6.1%
7. Heathcliff, from Wuthering Heights 5.9%
8. Arwen, from The Lord of the Rings 4.2%
9. Rhett Butler, from Gone with the Wind 3.9%
10. Cathy, from Wuthering Heights 3.4%
Top ten book characters that teenagers today would most like to go on a date with
1. Hermione Granger, from the Harry Potter series 23.0%
2. Jacob Black, from the Twilight series 14.1%
3. Edward Cullen, from the Twilight series 9.9%
4. Mary-Jane Parker, from the Spider-Man graphic novels 6.5%
5. Mr Darcy, from Pride and Prejudice 5.9%
6. Arwen, from The Lord of the Rings 5.5%
7. Robbie the Sex God, from the Georgia Nicolson series 5.3%
8. Tracy Beaker, from the Tracy Beaker series 4.6%
9. Prince Caspian, from the Chronicles of Narnia series 3.8%
10. Sophie Neveu, from The Da Vinci Code 3.2%
30.1% of teenagers confess to reading only a couple of books each year, and just 18.6%
of teenagers read a book a week. On the contrary, 37.2% of adults claim to have read a
book a week as a teenager, and just 16.4% used to read only a couple of books a year.
Positively, 58.1% of adults feel they read the same amount or more now compared to
when they were teenagers.
The survey shows evidence of 21st century teens embracing technology to read their
books. 40.8% of teenagers surveyed have read a book on a computer and 17.2% have
read a book on a mobile phone. 13.3% of teenagers have embraced the very latest and
up-to-the-minute technologies and have read a book on a Tablet or iPad, and 9.3% on
an e-reader.
When adults and teenagers were asked which media they currently enjoy reading most,
books came first with the overwhelming majority. 64.2% of adults prefer to read books
above magazines, newspapers, websites and blogs, comics and graphic novels, and ebooks.
50.5% of teenagers also prefer books. Having grown up with modern
technologies, websites and blogs are more popular amongst teenagers than adults.
Rachel Russell, Chair of World Book Day 2011, and Business Unit Director for Books at
WHSmith said:
“In the year that World Book Day is focusing on helping teenagers
celebrate books and reading, it’s interesting to see what tastes and traits young readers
today share with readers of the past. Our results show that in a world of digital media
teenagers still love books, and are enjoying classics novels as well as contemporary
bestsellers. It would be interesting to see answers to the same questions from teenagers
in another generation’s time”.
To coincide with this survey World Book Day has launched a public campaign to find out
the nation’s favourite book crush. Follow World Book Day on Twitter where we will reveal
the book crushes of celebrities (available to press on request), and tweet us your own
book crush @WorldBookDayUK #bookcrush.
This survey was carried out to coincide with a new teen initiative led by World Book Day
to encourage teenagers to read. This year World Book Day has launched a new website
www.digi-tale.co specifically targeted at teenagers, where teenagers can download a
digi-tale written by popular author Louise Rennison, How to make any twit fall in love with
you. The site also includes interviews, readings, trailers and talks, as well as games to
play, free downloads, event listings and a ‘what to read’ guide.
March 3, 2011
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