Lemony Endings, Sweet

For Lemony Snicket and HarperCollins, The End is here—the end, that is, of an extraordinary run that began back in 1999 with The Bad Beginning. The 13th and final Series of Unfortunate Events volume came out last October—appropriately enough, on Friday the 13th. Harper sold just over two million copies, along with a combined three million copies of the series's 12 backlist titles—a five-million-copy sendoff to an not-so-unfortunate series.

The End was far and away the bestselling children's book last year, in any category. The year's #2 bestseller was the paperback reprint of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which clocked in at 1. 3 million copies. Next came a YA thriller from James Patterson, Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment; it sold just over a million copies in paperback.

Sales of new books seem to be up almost across the board. In hardcover frontlist, 94 titles sold more than 100,000 copies, compared to 57 titles in 2005. In the hardcover backlist category, sales levels were almost identical to the previous year: 119 titles selling more than 100,000 copies, vs. 120 titles in 2005. And both the paperback frontlist and backlist categories had more titles this time around: 128 titles above 100,000 in 2006, vs. 100 in 2005, for frontlist, and 210 vs. 182 for backlist.

In hardcover frontlist, new titles from bestselling authors could be found at the top of the charts. There were picture books from Jamie Lee Curtis, Doreen Cronin/Betsy Lewin, Lynne Cheney, Kevin Henkes and Maurice Sendak, each selling more than 200,000 copies. Also above that mark: new novels from Eoin Colfer, Kate DiCamillo, Louis Sachar, Stephenie Meyer and Mike Lupica.

Tried-and-true favorites dominate the hardcover backlist category. Since there will always be more kids, there will always be more demand for titles like Goodnight Moon, Green Eggs and Ham, The Poky Little Puppy and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Five Dr. Seuss titles were in the top 15, along with more than half a million Christopher Paolini hardcovers—Random House titles all.

Licensed product and media tie-ins continue to drive paperback frontlist, including the movies Cars, Over the Hedge, Happy Feetand Pirates of the Caribbean. New entries in established franchises, like Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Captain Underpants and The Clique, also sold big.

The movies were also a big driver in paperback backlist: Chronicles of Narnia, Charlotte's Web, How to Eat Fried Worms. Also notable in this category are the cumulative figures for two Random House series: a whopping 4. 8 million Magic Tree House titles sold, and 4. 3 million Junie B. Jones titles.