Friday, January 24, 2025
January is usually a time to pause and take stock of the past year and, of course, carve out fresh goals for the one ahead. New Year’s resolutions like “exercise more” and “save money” remain persistently popular, but a new YouGov poll reveals that 22 percent of young adults and 20 percent of millennials and Gen Xers prioritize “reading more.”
For those fancying to refine their reading chops, but unsure where to start, we took a retrospective look at Waldinger Memorial Library’s most borrowed titles of 2024 to see the genres and authors that captivated Valley Stream patrons.
In the crazed world of young adult fiction, the dystopian genre dominated the rankings this year with Marie Lu’s ”Legend” claiming the top spot. Set in a war-torn, futuristic Los Angeles, the 2011 novel follows 15-year-old prodigy June Iparis and fugitive Daniel Wing as they unravel their nation’s darkest secrets. James Dashner’s highly praised novel “Maze Runner” came in at a close second.
“The dystopian genre is that genre that’s always going to be popular,” said Waldinger Library’s teen librarian Faith Kenney. “They’re very accessible and they are not high fantasy or far-fetched. It’s different enough to let teens imagine a different world without being too far from contemporary reality.”
Unsurprisingly, literary heavyweights like Suzanne Collins, author of the internationally acclaimed Hunger Games series, ranked high and not just in Valley Stream. One of her most recent titles, “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” a prequel to the popular trilogy, took the No. 2 spot countywide.
Overall, female authors — centering bold, young, adventurous female leads in their stories — dominated the top slots.
Researchers point out that the towering commercial and publishing success of female storytellers is hardly a recent phenomenon. Their works consistently draw high sales figures and a devoutly engaged readership, particularly among teenage girls and young adults. This was also the year of the “romantasy” genre, a cross between romance and fantasy adventure.
For proof, look no further than “A Court of Thorns and Roses” by Sarah Mass, the quintessential “romantasy” epic, which was the top checked-out book in the county.
The novel’s success and its spin-off books can partly be traced back to its viral popularity on BookTok, a subcommunity of book lovers on TikTok where users review books, recommend their favorites, and discover trending titles.
Many of the titles that follow the “book-to-TV or book-to-movie” pipeline or are popular on social media tend to become or stay widely popular with teens and young adults, noted Kenney.
“Series also tend to be more popular than stand-alone or one-and-done books,” said Kenney. “There’s something reassuring about being able to return to these characters again and again at different points in a series especially when life can feel like it’s moving quickly.”
While Kenney noted that a protagonist’s gender doesn’t really impact the storytelling quality of the books, the prominence of female authorship and the readers most likely to seek out their stories are hard to deny.
While in Valley Stream, the top adult title was the renowned self-help book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear, the most checked-out adult book in the county was “The Women” by Kristin Hannah.
“The list is a little skewed because it partly reflects how many books of a certain author we have in our collection,” said Waldinger library director Mamie Eng. “The popular library book in the county last year was “The Women” by Kristin Hannah, but not in Valley Stream. There were hundreds of copies of that book across the county, but only about five in Valley Stream.”
Eng was not surprised by Hannah’s prolific showing. Other of her titles, “The Nightingale” and “The Four Winds” resonated with village patrons.
“Readers typically want a familiar type of book, definitely skewed toward women,” said Eng. “A lot of our readers are women, and I’d say most of them want books with satisfying ends. There weren’t very big mysteries in our list, nothing too edgy. That’s just not our readership.”
The most popular children’s books in Valley Stream tell a different tale altogether. Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man series — featuring a half-dog, half-man hero tackling crime with humor and heart — dominates the top three spots.
Pilkey, famed for his beloved Captain Underpants series, and Jeff Kinney, creator of the beloved Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, claim every spot in Valley Stream’s top ten list and even further down the line. The Pilkey-Kinney streak is broken by Raina Telgemeier’s “Sisters” with the No. 17 spot.
“Of all the sections in the children’s room, the graphic novels are the most popular section, which is “Dog Man” and to an extent “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” to the parent’s dismay,” said Waldinger Library’s children’s librarian Jaclyn Kunz.
While comic books often face eye-rolling criticism for their perceived simplicity, Kunz defends the genre, saying, “There’s a lot of really valuable literature in that section,” and encourages students to dive in.
She notes that comics can be a gateway to broadening students’ literary interests while also offering pure enjoyment.
“Dog Man—a character who’s half dog, half human—might seem absolutely insane to, you know, adults, but for the kids it’s very entertaining and very funny,” she said.
Have an opinion on this article? Send an emai to jlasso@liherald.com.
