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Bulgaria, 100 Books

Running from 27 February to 19 June 2011, Bulgarian National Television’s licensed BBC-format campaign “The Little Big Bulgaria Read” (Малкото Голямо Четене) invited only school-age readers to name their single favourite children’s novel and amassed well over 100,000 ballots on its website—augmented, in later phases, by postcard and SMS votes—making it the largest national children’s reading poll on record. Eligible voters were primarily pupils aged roughly 7–14, mobilised through classroom events, reading clubs and a slate of BNT-backed art, writing and video contests; adults could watch, but votes cast from adult accounts were screened out during registration. The rules were purely popularity-based: any children’s book could be nominated, the 100 most-nominated titles advanced to a second ballot, and the top ten were defended by celebrity-and-kid “champions” in a live prime-time final. That broadcast saw Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstocking top the list with 16.238 % of the final-round vote, edging the Harry Potter series (15.027 %) and Bulgaria’s own Patilansko Tsarstvo (12.43 %). BNT never published raw vote totals or a voter roll, but its mid-year corporate report confirms the headline participation figure and hails the project as “a nationwide opinion survey on children’s reading tastes”.

This list was originally published in 2009 and was added to this site about 2 years ago.