Corrections

This past week, I completed my review of titles checked out 50+ times in the FY25 JMRL circulation data. I looked at about 2% of the titles, examining whether their age range (Kid Lit, Young Adult, General Audience) was correct.

The age-range data came from scripts Claude created to fetch a book’s ISBN from Open Library and Google Books. A second script leveraged the ISBN to fetch subject tags from the same sources. A third script added an age range based on subject tag and author analysis.

Through combing through 2% of the data, I realized that more titles were Kid Lit than Claude’s scripts had found. When I found authors that were Kid Lit authors or common themes (for example: “potty” or “big book of”), I searched the entire file to update missed titles.

The results: In the FY25 JMRL Circulation data, 29% of both digital and physical book titles were Kid Lit titles. This is up from 26% of titles in the first analysis.

Magazines

I took a closer look at the top ten Kid Lit magazines according to the data:

1. The Week Junior US (digital title)
2. Nat Geo Kids (digital title)
3. The Week Junior (digital title)
4. Looney Tunes (physical title)
5. Highlights for Children (digital title)
6. Scooby-Doo where are you? (physical title)
7. Nat Geo Kids (physical title)
8. Ranger Rick Jr (physical title)
9. Highlights for Children (physical title)
10. Zoobooks

Magazines are often forgotten when building a small collection. They often offer children their first experiences with informational texts.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Another thing I noticed as I went through the titles is how often one book was represented by multiple titles (“Diary of a Wimpy Kid Hot Mess,” “Hot Mess,” “Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid Hot Mess”). As I would expect, there were also multiple rows for exact titles, because books come in many formats: physical, digital, audio, and others.

Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid book, Hot Mess is the most checked-out Kid Lit Book for FY25, with 290 checkouts of the audiobook, 229 book checkouts (probably digital copy), and 53 book checkouts (probably physical copy) for a total of 572 checkouts.

From most checked out, here are the Diary of a Wimpy Kid numbers:

• Hot Mess (Book 19): 572 checkouts
• The Getaway (Book 12): 447 checkouts
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Book 1): 433 checkouts
• No Brainer (Book 18): 411 checkouts
• The Deep End (Book 15): 400 checkouts
• Diper Överlöde (Book 17): 378 checkouts
• Hard Luck (Book 8): 363
• Double Down (Book 11): 344 checkouts
• Wrecking Ball (Book 14): 331 checkouts
• Big Shot (Book 16): 314 checkouts
• The Meltdown (Book 13): 310 checkouts
• Cabin Fever (Book 6): 309 checkouts
• Rodrick Rules (Book 2): 306 checkouts
• Dog Days (Book 4): 289 checkouts
• The Ugly Truth (Book 5): 268 checkouts
• The Last Straw (Book 3): 263 checkouts
• Old School (Book 10): 263 checkouts
• The Third Wheel (Book 7): 260 checkouts
• The Long Haul (Book 9): 253 checkouts

The Rowley spin-off series, made up of three titles, was checked out 316 times.

The movie spin-off series, also made up of three titles, was checked out 116 times.

Librarians and families should anticipate that Partypooper, the 20th book in the series, published in 2025, will be a huge hit with readers. I predict its checkout numbers will smash the record from the 19th book, Hot Mess.

Educators can plan book launch events for Fight of Flight, the 21st book in the series, which will be released on October 20th, 2026.