Popularity book series in reading order

by James Patterson

by Nancy Krulik

Ann M. Martin

446 books• 24 series

Ann Matthews Martin, born August 12, 1955, is an American writer of children's and young adult fiction and a Smith College graduate. The Baby-Sitters Club, first published in 1986, is the series Martin is known best for, and Martin remains involved with the series and its spin-offs. The catalogue lists 446 books, beginning with Inside Out and Bummer Summer in 1983. Related lines include Baby-Sitters Club Mysteries, California Diaries, Kids in Ms. Colman's Class, Main Street and Doll People. Jessi Ramsey, Pet-sitter: A Graphic Novel (2025) is the newest listed title.

Rachel Renee Russell

21 books• 3 series

Rachel Renée Russell, born March 13, 1959, created Dork Diaries and its spin-off The Misadventures of Max Crumbly. Russell grew up in Saint Joseph, Michigan, studied at Northwestern University and then law school. Dork Diaries uses a diary format with doodles and comic strips to record Nikki Maxwell's struggle through middle school, drawing on Russell's own middle school years, and Russell's daughter Nikki illustrates it. The 21 titles open with Tales from a Not-So-Fabulous Life (2009) and reach Tales from a Not-So-Bratty Little Sister (2024).

Shani Petroff is credited on nine books published between 2009 and 2020. Destined is the series the catalogue records, and Daddy's Little Angel (2009) opens the whole list. Subjects run to middle schools, popularity, fathers and daughters, dating, theater, the Devil and reality television programs. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Dress (2009), Careful What You Wish For (2010), Love Struck (2010), Ash (2015), My New Crush Gave to Me (2017), Romeo & What's Her Name (2017) and Airports, Exes, and Other Things I'm Over (2018) precede Finding Mr. Better-Than-You (2020).

James Patterson

510 books• 73 series

James Patterson, born on March 22, 1947, is an American writer whose catalogue here holds 514 books published from 1976 to 2027. The run opens with The Thomas Berryman Number (1976), and Along Came a Spider (1992) and Kiss the Girls (1995) follow later. Alex Cross, Michael Bennett, Maximum Ride, Daniel X, Witch & Wizard, NYPD Red, Private, Middle School and the Women's Murder Club are among the Patterson series, alongside standalone thrillers, non-fiction and romance. Marshall Karp shares the credit on 5 of the books. Patterson's sales exceed 425 million copies, and Patterson was the first person to sell one million e-books. Forbes ranked Patterson the highest-paid author in 2016, for a third year running, and the National Book Foundation gave Patterson the Literarian Award in November 2015. 27 Stars is scheduled for 2027.

Caroline B. Cooney (born May 10, 1947) is an American writer of suspense, romance, horror and mystery for young adults. The catalogue counts 93 books from 1979 to The Wrong Good Deed (2023). Janie Johnson, Both Sides Of Time/Time Travelers, Losing Christina and Vampire's Promise are series. Early titles include Rear-View Mirror (1980), He Loves Me Not (1982) and Holly in Love (1983). Subjects include high schools, friendship, identity, popularity and vampires.

Francine Pascal (née Rubin, 1932–2024) was an American author whose name is tied to the Sweet Valley books for young adults. Sweet Valley High anchored that collection, was adapted for television, and branched into spin-offs such as The Unicorn Club and Sweet Valley University. The catalogue opens with Hangin' Out with Cici (1977) and also carries the Fearless series. Subjects include twins, sisters, high schools, friendship and dating. Most Sweet Valley books came out in the 1980s and 1990s, and several titles were re-released decades later.

Jennifer L. Holm

66 books• 13 series

Jennifer L. Holm, born in 1968, writes for children in both prose and comics, and holds three Newbery Honors and an Eisner Award. Babymouse, an imaginative mouse at school, recurs across the Babymouse and BIG Adventures of Babymouse books, with Squish, Sunny, My First Comics and Evil Princess vs. the Brave Knight as the other graphic series. May Amelia, Boston Jane, Turtle in Paradise and The Fourteenth Goldfish sit alongside them in prose. Holm's 66 catalogued books run from Our Only May Amelia (1999) to Sunny Figures It Out (2025), at a median of 126 pages.

Nancy Krulik writes for children, and the catalogue lists Grades 1-3 as the reading level. Series credited to Krulik include Katie Kazoo, Switcheroo, How I Survived Middle School, Magic Bone, Princess Pulverizer and Project Droid, and George Brown, Class Clown appears among the characters. Subjects range across magic, schools, friendship, dogs, robots and humorous stories. The most recent listed book is Fangs for Having Us! (2021), and the catalogue marks the output as dormant.

Kieran Scott, born 11 March 1974, is an American author who also publishes as Kate Brian. Under the Kate Brian name come chick lit books such as The Princess and the Pauper, The Virginity Club, Sweet 16, Fake Boyfriend and the Private series. Books under Scott's own name include She's So Dead to Us, Brunettes Strike Back, Geek Magnet and I Was a Non-Blonde Cheerleader, a YALSA Teens Top Ten nominee. The catalogue subjects include boarding schools, high schools, cliques and teenage girls, and the listing runs from 1998 to 2026.

Coco Simon is the name on Cupcake Diaries and its companion series for middle-grade readers. Katie and the Cupcake Cure (2011) opens a catalogue of 63 books that reaches Natalie's Sprinkle of Light (2025). Sprinkle Sundays, Donut Dreams, Cupcake Diaries: The New Batch and a graphic novel line follow. Friendship, middle school and baking are the recurring subjects, and the books run to a median 144 pages.

Susan Richards Shreve is an American novelist, memoirist and children's author, with fifteen novels, thirty children's books and the memoir Warm Springs: Traces of a Childhood (2007) to the name. Shreve co-founded the MFA in Creative Writing programme at George Mason University in 1980 and teaches fiction writing there, and co-founded the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. Joshua T. Bates and Lucy Forever are the children's series; schools, family life and divorce recur as subjects. The listing holds 51 titles dated 1974 to 2021.

R.L. Stine

589 books• 64 series

Robert Lawrence Stine, born October 8, 1943, is an American novelist who writes horror fiction for children. Goosebumps, the series Stine created, sold more than 400 million copies in 35 languages and grew into a franchise of two television series, video games, comics and two feature films. Fear Street, Stine's horror sequence for teenagers, passed 80 million copies and was adapted for film. Stine has been called the Stephen King of children's literature. The listing runs to 590 titles, from How to Be Funny (1978), published as Jovial Bob Stine, to How to Train Your Dummy, scheduled for 2027.

Melody Carlson, born March 2, 1956 in San Francisco, is an American author of more than 250 books for women, teens and children, including the Diary of a Teenage Girl series. The catalogue lists 298 books from 1995, when Contemplative Bible Reading and How to Start a Quality Childcare Business in Your Home appeared, to All Booked Up (2026). Series include Carter House Girls, On The Runway, TrueColors, 86 Bloomberg Place, Secret Life of Samantha McGregor, Beary Patch Bears and Fruit Troops. Subjects include Christian life, high schools, friendship, Bible stories and stories in rhyme. Carlson grew up in Springfield, Oregon, attended Lane Community College and lives in Sisters, Oregon.

Katherine Applegate

228 books• 20 series

Katherine Applegate, born October 9, 1956, and sometimes published as K. A. Applegate, is an American author of children's and young adult fiction. Animorphs, Remnants and Everworld are the series most tied to Applegate, and The One and Only Ivan (2012) won the 2013 Newbery Medal. Applegate received the Publishers Weekly Best New Children's Book Series Award in 1997. The catalogue lists 228 books, from Welcome to Junior High! (1990) to The Littlest Elephant (2026), including Girl Talk, Making Out and Roscoe Riley Rules.

Melissa De La Cruz

94 books• 26 series

Melissa de la Cruz, born September 7, 1971, is a Filipina-American writer of young adult fiction. De la Cruz's young adult series include Au Pairs, Blue Bloods and The Beauchamp Family. The catalogue lists 95 books, starting with The Girl Can't Help It! (2001) and reaching This Song Is About Me (2026), with Diviner listed for 2027. Other series include Descendants, Alex & Eliza, Heart of Dread and Chronicles of Never After. Vampires, witches, wealth, preparatory schools and New York appear among the subjects.

Alyson Noel

32 books• 5 series

Thirty-two books by Alyson Noel are catalogued, from Faking 19 (2005) to Chasing Eternity (2024). Noel, born December 3, 1965, is an American author from Orange County, California. Paranormal fiction dominates the recorded subjects, along with psychic ability, immortality, the dead, high schools and death. Soul Seekers, Riley Bloom, Beautiful Idols and Stealing Infinity are the series listed, and Evermore (2009), Blue Moon (2009) and Shadowland (2009) are among the titles.

Louis Sachar

30 books• 4 series

Louis Sachar writes for children, chiefly school stories with a humorous streak. Wayside School and the novel Holes are the best known of Sachar's work, alongside the Marvin Redpost and Someday Angeline books; Holes took the 1998 National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the 1999 Newbery Medal. Thirty books are catalogued between Sideways Stories from Wayside School (1978) and The Magician of Tiger Castle (2025). Schools, boys, popularity and friendship recur as subjects.

Roxanne St. Claire has 68 catalogued books spanning 2003 to 2026. Subjects attached to the work include romance, romantic suspense, bodyguards, undercover operations, murder and missing persons. Tropical Getaway (2003) is the earliest title, and Hit Reply (2004) appears under the name Rocki Claire. Series include Bullet Catcher, Guardian Angelinos, McGraths, the Barefoot Bay books, Dogfather and Dogmothers. Appointment in Amalfi (2026) is the newest title.

Svetlana Chmakova creates comics and graphic novels, and the 20 catalogued books run from 2005 to 2024. Three Dramacon volumes (2005 to 2007) came first, followed by Nightschool: The Weirn Books (2009 and 2010), then Awkward (2015) and Brave (2017). The newest title is The Weirn Books, Vol. 2: The Ghost and the Stolen Dragon (2024). Schools, witches, vampires, monsters and young artists appear among the subjects, and the series include Berrybrook Middle School.

Lisi Harrison

41 books• 10 series

Lisi Harrison is a Canadian author of young adult fiction, known for three series: The Clique, Alphas and Monster High. The Clique (2004) opens a catalogue of 41 titles, with middle schools, cliques, friendship and competition in the subject tags, and monsters, boarding schools and prejudice beside them. Graphic novels, a Clique Summer Collection and the Graveyard Girls follow. Two Truths and a Lion (2023) is the most recent title.

Katie Sise's catalogue opens with a career guide, Creative Girl: The Ultimate Guide for Turning Talent and Creativity into a Real Career (2010), then turns to fiction. The App series follows with The Boyfriend App (2013) and The Pretty App (2015), and The Academy (2018), We Were Mothers (2018), Open House (2020), The Break (2022), The Vacation Rental (2024) and You Must Be New Here (2025) complete the nine catalogued titles. Careers, creative ability, high schools, popularity and dating run through the subjects. Sise is still publishing.

Ann Martin is the author of The Baby-Sitters Club, a children's series about a group of friends who run a babysitting business. Kristy, Claudia, Stacey, Mary Anne and Dawn take turns as narrators across the books. The catalogue holds 75 titles published between 1986 and 1999, opening with Kristy's Great Idea and reaching The Fire at Mary Anne's House. Friendship, family life and school worries drive the plots, with a mystery strand running alongside, in books averaging 160 pages.

Claudia Mills, born August 21, 1954, in New York City, is an American children's author and an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado Boulder. The catalogue lists 64 books from Luisa's American Dream (1981) to The Lost Language (2021). Series include Gus and Grandpa, West Creek Middle School, Franklin School Friends, Dinah, Mason Dixon and Nora Notebooks. Subjects include schools, friendship, grandparents, brothers and sisters, and popularity.

Written for grades 3 to 5, Anna Staniszewski's books draw on magic, fairy tales, the supernatural, single-parent families, secrets, popularity and dating. Dirt Diary, Once Upon a Fairy Tale, My Very UnFairy Tale Life and Switched at First Kiss are the four series credited to Staniszewski, and Dirt Diary also stands as a character entry. The 22 books run from My Very UnFairy Tale Life (2011) to Double Clique (2021), taking in The Dirt Diary (2014), The Prank List (2014) and The Gossip File (2015). The median book is 224 pages, and nothing has been listed since 2021.