Every book & reading number, sourced.
Book Statistics tracks 13,258 state reading-list
assignments covering 1,664 distinct books across
47 U.S. states.
The most-assigned book is Wonder by
R.J. Palacio (148 assignments).
The median assigned book was published in 2012
and runs 212 pages (page counts known for
11,719 of 13,258 assignments).
13,258 reading-list assignments
1,664 distinct books assigned
47 U.S. states covered
148 assignments of Wonder — the most-assigned
book
2012 median publication year of assigned books n = 13,258 assignments
212 median page count of assigned books n = 11,719 (88.4% of assignments)
What Book Statistics is
Book Statistics is the reference layer of Figures Bureau, a data-publications studio. It publishes computed, source-verified book and reading numbers in lookup form — tables, definitions, per-year figures — built from an original dataset of 13,258 state reading-list assignments, each row carrying its own source URL and verification date.
Every figure is recomputed from the underlying dataset on every build. Numbers we cannot verify are omitted, never guessed — the methodology explains exactly how each statistic is computed and where the data comes from.
On this site
- Methodology The dataset, the joins, the refresh cadence, and the zero-fabrication policy behind every number.
- About Who publishes Book Statistics, and what Figures Bureau is.
- assigned-books.csv The assignment join as machine-readable data — book, author, state, grade, assignment count. Free, CORS-enabled, CC BY 4.0 — reuse with a link.
The narrative studies
The stories behind these numbers are published as full data studies on readinglist.school, built from the same dataset:
- Reading Statistics 2026 The narrative study of the full assignment corpus.
- The Most-Assigned Books of 2026 Which books U.S. reading lists actually assign, ranked.
- How Old Are Assigned Books? The publication-year distribution behind the 'dusty classics' myth.