The Gruffalo named Britain’s most popular first read

A new study has revealed that The Gruffalo is the go-to book when it comes to reading to our children for the very first time.

The survey – which was commissioned by The Works and leads in to National Book Lovers Day on Wednesday 9 August – aimed to uncover reading habits among parents and children, and whether our own experiences of reading influences how we read to our children, as well as the top books we read to children today.

The results proved overwhelmingly favourable towards Julia Donaldson titles, with The Gruffalo not only taking the crown as the number one read book to children, but with titles such as Zog and Room on the Broom also popular, a total of one in five children have a Julia Donaldson book read to them as their very first story.

These titles were joined by evergreens such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which is the second most popular first book read to children, and the That’s Not My… series which came in third.

The top 10 first books parents read to their children are:

  • The Gruffalo
  • The Very Hungry Caterpillar
  • That’s Not My…
  • Guess How Much I Love You
  • Peppa Pig
  • Spot
  • The Tale of Peter Rabbit
  • Dear Zoo
  • Winnie the Pooh
  • Harry Potter

 

You can view the full study by simply clicking here.

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