Walliams is back on top while Sánchez Vegara's Queen Elizabeth shines

David Walliams and Richard Osman swapped places week on week with Walliams and illustrator Adam Stower’s SPACEBOY notching up its first number one, in a seven-day period which also saw a spike in Halloween and royal family-themed titles.

SPACEBOY (HarperCollins Children’s) shifted 35,360 units through Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market to give Walliams his 77th overall top spot, and his 176th week atop the Children’s chart. However, it is Walliams’ lowest return for a first full week of sales for a middle-grade novel in nearly a decade.

While Osman was knocked from the overall summit after a three-week run, his The Bullet That Missed (Viking, 31,963 copies) retained its Original Fiction number one. Osman’s The Man Who Died Twice, however, was also bumped from the Mass Market Fiction pole position, with Colleen Hoover’s It Ends with Us (Simon & Schuster, 14,806) returning for its eighth number one after an absence of three weeks.

The top new title for the week was Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara and illustrator Melissa Lee Johnson’s rather providentially-timed Queen Elizabeth (Frances Lincoln), which shifted 11,151 units to hit ninth place. This is the 87th book in Sánchez Vegara’s Little People, Big Dreams series of picture book biographies featuring famous people when they were young—and the first time she has ever cracked into the top 50. It is by some distance her biggest seven-day haul with the previous high point the just over 3,500 units David Attenborough (illustrated by Mikyo Noh) sold in the week before Christmas 2020. 

In fact, in one week Queen Elizabeth has already surpassed the life sales of 61 of the previous books in the series. Little People, Big Dreams has generated a tidy £8.2m through the TCM since the first, Coco Chanel (illustrated by Ana Albero), was published in 2016. And she has been on the up of late: nearly 40% of that revenue has been rung up in the last 12 months.

The other big royal family-themed launch was Valentine Low’s Courtiers (Headline), which chalked up just over 6,500 units to land in 21st place in its first week. The Times journalist’s book looks at the mechanics of the monarchy and vast array of advisors who work behind the scenes to keep “the firm” running.

Halloween and spooky children’s tales are surging, with six titles in the overall top 50, led by Tom Fletcher, Dougie Poynter and illustrator Garry Parsons’ The Dinosaur that Pooped Halloween! (Puffin) which rose a dozen places week on week to hit 12th. Thirteen of the Children’s and Preschool Top 20 spots are Halloween-themed with a combination of new titles—Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s The Baddies (Alison Green), Camilla Reid and Ingela P Arrhenius Peekaboo Pumpkin (Nosy Crow)—and re-entries of older favourites including two editions of Donaldson and Scheffler’s Room on a Broom (Macmillan Children’s) and Allan and Janet Ahlberg’s Funnybones (Puffin).      

Davina McCall and Dr Naomi Potter’s Menopausing (HQ) jumped four places week on week to claim its first Hardback Non-Fiction top spot...perhaps boosted by The Bookseller’s menopause special issue last week. Menopausing displaced Jamie Oliver’s One (Michael Joseph) after a four-week run at the summit. In Paperback Non-fiction, Stanley Tucci’s Taste (Fig Tree) notched up its third consecutive number one.

While many booksellers reported roaring trade over Bookshop Day, perhaps sales were not consistent across the seven days: £36.1m was spent through the TCM last week, a marginal gain (0.8%) over the previous week, but 2.6% down on the same week in 2021.