BRINGING DOWN THE MOON tops my library loans chart!

Bringing Down the Moon
is my most borrowed book

I've just received last year's UK library loans figures for my books, courtesy of the Public Lending Right (PLR) organisation.

I'm always interested to see which of my books are most popular in libraries and the loans figures are often surprisingly different from my sales figures.

For the last seven years my kite-flying picture book Someone Bigger has topped my loans chart by a considerable margin, but it's finally been knocked off the top spot by the first Mole and Friends picture book, Bringing Down the Moon. 

Farmyard frolic, The Pig's Knickers makes its first appearance in the top 5 at number 3, but a surprising new entry at number 5 is Monsters: An Owners Guide. This book came out in 2010 but went out of print less than two years later due to low sales.  However it's obviously been far more popular in libraries.

Out of print picture book
Monsters: An Owner's Guide is a
surprise entry in the top 5

Here are my top 5 most borrowed books.

Position	Book Title	Nº of Loans
1	Bringing Down the Moon	20,013	↑
2	Someone Bigger	17,070	↓
3	The Pig’s Knickers	13,449	↑
4	Diamond in the Snow	12,419	↓
5	Monsters: An Owner’s Guide	12,051	↑

  

The PLR organisation also publishes a list of the UK's Most Borrowed Authors and I've crept up another 12 places in this to 180th place. The most borrowed author was once again US crime writer James Patterson, with children's "author" Daisy Meadows in second place again. "Daisy Meadows" is the pseudonym used by a collection of authors who write the Rainbow Magic series, so the highest ranking individual children's author was picture book maestro Julia Donaldson in third place.

4th US award nomination for The Princess and the Pig!

I've known since last year that The Princess and the Pig, one of the picture books I've done with illustrator Poly Bernatene, is shortlisted for three different book awards in the US states of North Carolina, Washington and Maryland. The winners for these will be announced in the next couple of months. And now I've just been told that the book has also been shortlisted for the Georgia Children's Book Awards 2013-2014, the winners of which will be announced next year.

---

UPDATE 4/1/14:
I'm delighted to announce that Monsters: An Owners Guide is now BACK IN PRINT in a Let's Read mini-paperback edition.