The most borrowed book of all-time at the New York Public Library is about snow.

The NYPL recently tallied up its all-time check-out numbers and released a top ten list of the most borrowed books in its history. Not surprisingly, there are a lot of children’s books and classics on there, but I wouldn’t have guessed at the number one, Ezra Jack Keats’ The Snowy Day, a 1962 illustrated kids’ book that evokes the magic of a first snow (you know, like this image). The rest of the list is as follows, and seems much more obvious (at least to me, a foreigner):

The Cat in the Hat, Dr. Seuss
1984, George Orwell
Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, J.K. Rowling
The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle