What our childhood heroes teach us

Unsurprisingly this influences the kind of books they want to read. “All the books that are popular in some ways have a conflict whether it’s against society, or adults, or among friends or in a school,” says Stenberg. “And then there is the brave act of standing up to it,” she adds. The children want to see “characters who are not afraid to speak up about injustices, and who have the courage to defend the rights of others.” 

This of course includes characters such as Anne of Green Gables and Matilda, but Stenberg believes that these classic books “should be complemented by newer books which more accurately can address the topics of today”.

She says that few of the books in the poll would be chosen by the children themselves. Something that Louis Lareau, managing librarian at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library Children’s Center in New York, agrees with. “Kids (and parents) are now actively looking for characters that reflect themselves – their culture, heritage, language or physical appearance,” she tells BBC Culture.

According to Marie Moser, owner of The Edinburgh Bookshop in the Edinburgh suburb of Bruntsfield, classic titles are bought by parents or grandparents, who fondly remember the reading experiences of their own childhood. Which is not to say that children don’t still enjoy them. However, when left to their own devices, children will pick books that contain characters they themselves can connect with or identify with, although this doesn’t necessarily mean they will have to be in a contemporary setting.

“Some of them want to see kids like themselves because that’s how they roll, some of them want fantasy because they find real life too scary,” Moser tells BBC Culture.

Universal appeal

Harry Potter seems to be popular with both of these camps. “It’s about the downtrodden rising up, which is a classic theme, and people behaving decently despite the people around you, the adults, not behaving decently,” says Moser when explaining the series’ universal appeal.