The Midnight Gang strikes Christmas Number One

David Walliams’ The Midnight Gang (HarperCollins Children's) is the 2016 Christmas Number One, selling 79,200 copies for £474,684 and seeing off a challenge by an insurgent Five on Brexit Island (Quercus), while surprise hit The GCHQ Puzzle Book (Michael Joseph) had a strong third place finish. 

Topping off a record year for the kids’ book market, this is the first Children’s Christmas Number One since J K Rowling’s The Tales of Beedle the Bard (Bloomsbury) took the festive top spot in 2008, and also makes Walliams the first children’s author who isn’t J K Rowling to achieve it. It is also HarperCollins’ first ever Christmas Number One, after Mog’s Christmas Calamity was pipped to the post by the Ladybird Book for Grown-Ups title How it Works: The Husband (Michael Joseph) last year.

The Midnight Gang’s volume was 49.7% up on How it Works: The Husband’s pre-Christmas week sales last year, making it the biggest-selling Christmas Number One since Alex Ferguson’s My Autobiography (Hodder) in 2013.

As it clocked up a seventh week in the number one spot, The Midnight Gang becomes the longest-running Children’s title in the top spot—beating both 2016’s Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Little, Brown) and Walliams’ own Awful Auntie (HarperCollins Children's)—since Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Bloomsbury) in summer 2003, presumably before most of Walliams’ readers were even born. To round off a hat trick of milestones, The Midnight Gang surpassed the half-a-million-copies-sold mark and £3m earned, inside less than two months on sale.

Despite Five on Brexit Island increasing in volume by 24%, The Midnight Gang edged it with a 7.5% jump. The spoof Famous Five title has proved to be a runaway hit, shifting 76,909 copies last week, holding the Hardback Non-Fiction number one for a second week and surpassing a quarter of a million copies sold in total. It beat the Ladybirds frontrunner How it Works: The Grandparent in weekly volume by 118%. All five of the Famous Five series charted inside the Top 50, with only Five Go Parenting outside the top 30 (in 31st place), with each shifting in excess of 17,000 copies.

However, the Ladybirds have strength in numbers. While only The Grandparent hit the top 10, in total 11 of Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris’ stocking filler spoof series charted inside the Top 50, selling a combined 231,128 copies. 

In what must surely be the biggest shock of an otherwise placid year worldwide, The GCHQ Puzzle Book leapfrogged Christmas Number One contenders Guinness World Records 2017, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Little, Brown) and Tim Peake’s Hello, is this Planet Earth? (Century) to take a podium position. The title was boosted by a Radio 4 "You and Yours" special a couple of weeks ago and wasn’t even in the Top 50 in mid-November. It jumped 24% in volume week on week to sell 56,307 copies, leaving fellow Super Thursday releases (and Michael Joseph stablemates) Jamie Oliver’s Christmas Cookbook and the latest Ladybird tranche in the dust. 

Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent (Serpent's Tail) glided into the Original Fiction number one, usurping Lee Child’s Night School (Bantam) after five straight weeks in the top spot. The Waterstones Book of the Year increased 38% in volume, just two weeks after hitting the Fiction Heatseekers number one. At this rate, the paperback must be a safe bet for an overall number one in 2017.

The Man Booker Prize winner The Sellout (Oneworld) also received a festive boost, returning to the Top 50 with 16,373 units shifted. The shortlisted His Bloody Project (Saraband), which had the biggest bump in sales in the run-up to the prize’s announcement, also jumped, falling just outside the Top 50 to 51st. It has now sold over 80,000 copies.

The Girl on the Train (Black Swan) held the Mass Market Fiction number one for a 28th week. Paula Hawkins’ psychological thriller had the Original Fiction number one for Christmas 2015, and the paperback is now nearing the hardback’s record for weeks spent in its category top spot—29 non-consecutive weeks across 2015. 

There was only one new entry in the Top 50 last week: The Official Pokemon Encyclopedia (Orchard), which has replaced the blockbuster Pokemon Annual 2017. After the summer Pokemon Go craze, the brand is well on its way to becoming the new "Frozen" in the hearts of the nation’s children. However, another kids’ brand—though not necessarily being bought for actual children—reappeared in the Top 50, as Star Wars: Where’s the Wookiee? (Egmont), an October 2015 release, got a "Rogue One"-related bump back into the Top 50, in 50th place.