The NY Public Library’s Most Checked-Out Books of All Time

Here are the 10 books that have been checked out the most over the history of the New York Public Library:

1. “The Snowy Day,” by Ezra Jack Keats (485,583 checkouts)

2. “The Cat in the Hat,” by Dr. Seuss (469,650)

3. “1984,” by George Orwell (441,770)

4. “Where the Wild Things Are,” by Maurice Sendak (436,016)

5. “To Kill a Mockingbird,” by Harper Lee (422,912)

6. “Charlotte’s Web,” by E.B. White (337,948)

7. “Fahrenheit 451,” by Ray Bradbury (316,404)

8. “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” by Dale Carnegie (284,524)

9. “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” by J.K. Rowling (231,022)

10. “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” by Eric Carle (189,550)

Honorable mention:

“Goodnight Moon,” by Margaret Wise Brown

A lot of people probably had the same experience I did with “The Snowy Day”. I read the book when I was very little and I remembered it for years, but I had no idea what the book was called or who wrote it. At some point I was talking with someone about this beautiful and as far as I knew obscure book from my childhood with colorful collages of a lone child playing in the snow, and they knew exactly what book it was and who wrote it. Because it’s an extremely popular book.

It was another one of those times when I realized that if something touches me, it very likely will touch other people, too.

via The New York Times and the New York Public Library

Illustration from Matthew Owen’s cover for “Fahrenheit 451”

~ by lolarusa on January 14, 2020.