The top 10

Harry Potter series — J. K. Rowling (Bloomsbury)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid series — Jeff Kinney (Penguin Random House)

Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy — Lynley Dodd (Penguin Random House)

The World’s Worst Children — David Walliams (HarperCollins)

Treehouse series — Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton (Macmillan)

The Very Hungry Caterpillar — Eric Carle (Penguin Random House)

Geronimo and Thea Stilton series — Geronimo and Thea Stilton (Scholastic) Matilda — Roald Dahl (Penguin Random House) Tom Gates series — Liz Pichon (Scholastic) Wonder — R. J. Palacio (Penguin Random House)

I think that the popularity of Kiwi writers with our children reflects the importance of stories that mirror a recognisable landscape . . . Whitcoulls book buyer Joan Mackenzie

children’s market and New Zealand adult fiction,” said Matthew Simpson, national sales manager for HarperCollins.

While local picture books do extremely well, the same cannot be said for books aged 9+. Even Gregg is published by HarperCollins UK, not the local arm, and her books aren’t set here.

“Reading for older kids and adults tends to be internationally driven,” Simpson said. “By the time they’re eight or nine, they’re immersed in the pop culture trends coming out of the US and the UK. That middle-grade age group, that’s where all the money is, but we just can’t get our own series off the ground.”

Meanwhile, sales of teen fiction have dropped considerably since the likes of US author John Green’s The Fault in our Stars and The Hunger Games hit.

It remains to be seen how Green’s latest book does when it reaches here this month — it has a tuatara in it.