I remember a slogan growing up as a kid “Reading is Fundamental.” It was exciting and always fun to take a trip to the library to pick out a stack of books to take home. I would get lost in story after story about animals, places around the world, or boys and girls doing cool things that sparked my own imagination.

Kids reading books is so important for their development. Parents start reading to their children when they are still in the womb. Once they are born it brings back wonderful memories for a mom or dad to pick up the same children’s book their mom and dad read to them.

Filled with bright colors and incredible illustrations there is no better way to connect with a child than to sit close and read-aloud bringing the story to life. The reaction of a child as they connect to a character or point to the elephant on the page is priceless.
A study was recently released on “The Most Popular Children’s Book by State” by Grand Canyon University.

The study used published stories by Time and Publishers Weekly on the subject of children’s books and put together a list of 44 of the most popular books for children. They use Google Trends data over 2020 and 2021 to see which book was searched the most in each state according to Grand Canyon University. The target was the younger end of the spectrum eliminating books like the Harry Potter series from the study.

With all the bashing last year of the beloved books by Dr. Seuss, the Springfield native’s work certainly was not affected in this study landing a number of Theodor Seuss Geisel’s books at the top on many of the state’s lists.

Here in Massachusetts, the #1 Children’s Book in the state is One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss according to the Grand Canyon University study. Only the District of Columbia also had it on the top of their list.

The Most Popular Children's Book in Mass is One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

Across the country, the works by Dr. Seuss were recognized as the #1 Children’s Book in the state according to the study. Cat in the Hat leads the way with 8 states at #1. Tied for second with 4 states each was The Poky Little Puppy by Janette Sebring Lowery, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff, and Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson.

Other notable books landing in the #1 slot in multiple states included Yertle the Turtle, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do you See, Winnie-the-Pooh, The Giving Tree, Owl Moon, Green Eggs and Ham, and Charlotte’s Webb according to the Grand Canyon University study.

There is other great information in the “The Most Popular Children’s Book by State” study that you can access by clicking on this link to the Grand Canyon University.

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