At the end of any year I can, mostly, name the books that went out at the highest rate. It is particularly true this year, as I re-shelved them when they came back. There were no Library Pages to help shelve (we miss them!) due to COVID. To get a true count of our top checkouts I ran a report, and Suzanne Collins' prequel to her science fiction series The Hunger Games, topped our 2020 teen fiction chart for most checkouts. This was not a surprise.
While all the books in the Hunger Games trilogy went out a lot this year due to the new prequel, other series also continued to be popular such as: Rick Riordan's Trials of Apollo series, the Maze Runner series by James Dashner, and Neal Shusterman's Arc of a Scythe series.
Dear Evan Hansen, 1984, Midnight Sun, The Hate U Give, The Ruins of Gorlan, One of Us is Lying, and Rebound were titles that were also very popular this year.
The top 3 nonfiction books in order of number of checkouts, were:Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds, 2020. A history of racist and antiracist ideas in America, from their roots in Europe until today, adapted from the National Book Award winner Stamped from the Beginning. (I highly recommend the audiobook of Stamped, narrated by Jason Reynolds.)
The Complete Baking Book for Young Chefs, by America's Test Kitchen; Editor in Chief: Molly Birnbaum, 2019. 100+ sweet & savory recipes were tested by more than 5,000 kids to get them just right for cooks of all skill levels―including recipes for breakfast, breads, pizzas, cookies, cupcakes, and more.
The Playbook: 52 Rules to Aim, Shoot, and Sscore in this Game Called Life, by Kwame Alexander, 2017. Kwame shares poetry and inspiring lessons about the rules of life, as well as uplifting quotes from Stephen Curry,Venus Williams, Sonia Sotomayor, Michelle Obama, and others in this motivational and inspirational book.The top 10 graphic checkouts include two memoirs and one nonfiction title: