While parents enjoyed watching Tom Cruise kick butt in his latest action extravaganza, children enjoyed reading about a wimpy kid.
Some youngsters learned how to build cities with Legos, others learned to build worlds in “Minecraft.”
Clearview and High Plains library districts released their top adult and children’s books and movies checked out from their respective branches in 2018. The children have spoken: They want to learn about “Minecraft.”
Six of the top 15 children’s nonfiction books checked out at Clearview Library District were handbooks, guides and even an encyclopedia related to the mega-popular game. A few Lego books were also on the list.
“Maybe we are raising a new generation of engineers and builders,” library director Ann Kling said.
As for children’s fictional books in Clearview, it was all about the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” saga. Seven of the 10 children’s books checked out at Clearview were from the author Jeff Kinney’s book saga that has inspired merchandise and movies. But the district’s top children’s book in 2018 was not the wimpy kid, but the boy wizard’s second year at Hogwarts in “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.”
The most-checked-out movie for adults at Clearview was “Molly’s Game,” starring Jessica Chastain as Olympic skier-turned-illegal poker player Molly Bloom and directed by Aaron Sorkin. “The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature” was the most popular children’s movie.
John Grisham’s “Camino Island” was the top adult fiction title of the year at Clearview, and Paul Kalanithi’s autobiography “When Breath Becomes Air” was the top nonfiction title among adults.
At High Plains Library District, the sixth installment in Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible — Fallout” was the top adult film checked out, and the TV series “SpongeBob SquarePants” was the top children’s video checked out. The most popular adult fiction title was “A Delicate Touch” and the most popular nonfiction title was Michelle Obama’s “Becoming.”
But people weren’t only checking out books and movies in 2018. Clearview Library District also allows patrons to rent “explore kits” that allow people to test out pieces of technology before spending money on it to own.
Explore kits are divided into two categories: The more popular ones can be checked out for a week, and the rest can be checked out for a couple weeks.
A Sphero Mini, an app-controlled robotic ball, was the most checked-out kit among the seven-day options, and the Electronic Snap Circuits electronic toy was the most popular among the other category.
Here’s a full breakdown of the top checkouts.
