Happy drop everything and read day!
Beverly Cleary shaped millions of American children’s reading habits. She was a prolific author of children’s literature from the 1950s onward. Sadly, she passed away at 95 in 2021. However, her stories and books live on and are still widely read today — including by my kids when they were in grade school.
Her most famous character, arguably, was Ramona Quimby. (Ramona was a pest!) In those books, there was a reading group or initiative that Ramona took part in called: “Drop Everything and Read.”
The idea of celebrating Drop Everything and Read Day on Beverly Cleary’s birthday was born.
Though I went on a diatribe against capitalism and the death of writing careers two days ago in Friday’s post (Map 100 in this series), I want to assure you that I also enjoy reading and I do encourage young people to read. So this map is a mea culpa, in a way.
Each state shows the number one Google-searched children’s book and young adult fiction book in 2023 (I believe… the exact date should be in the pop-up window).
Each state is also colored based on the percent of the state population that is 0-18 years of age using US Census data.
Originally I was going to color the states with the appropriate book covers, but alas… darn copyright laws, make such free advertisements nearly impossible to pull off. Sorry! 🙂
Happy Drop Everything and Read Day! And thank you for all the great stories and memories, Beverly Cleary!
Data Creation with Perplexity Pro Prompt
Can you create a simple state-based dataset of most popular children’s book state-by-state based on 95 percent group and also Fusion Academy’s Young Adult most popular books by state and combine them into a single dataset. Also, if possible create a separate field using the most recent Census population survey/estimate data 2023 or later for each state showing percent of total population aged 0-18 or ~5 to 18 years of age (wherever the closest census breakdown is, please).
This dataset will be used in a map to celebrate “Drop Everything and Read Day” on Beverly Cleary’s birthday. Thanks! (P.S. Please include a column with state abbreviations too.)
WebMapGPT Prompt
Hi there. Sunday is Beverly Clearly Day or Drop Everything and Read Day (DERD).
To celebrate, I’m creating a simple US state map that displays either the top searched for children’s book and young adult book by state.
# Intent
To highlight young adult and children’s literature to celebrate Beverly Cleary’s contribution to reading.
# Map
Please use a US state base map in equal area albers or similar projection with Alaska and Hawaii placed in the lower left.
Each state should be filled with the book cover of the book represented by the data. States should have white outlines.
I’m not sure where images of book covers are on the internet, but I imagine Wikipedia probably has some good images, perhaps Amazon, or Google Books?
When a user clicks on a state, a pop up should appear (without an arrow) with the following information laid out similarly:
<div>
<h3>{state} ({state_abbr})</h3>
<p><strong>Children’s pick:</strong> {children_book_95percentgroup}<br>
<strong>YA pick:</strong> {ya_book_fusionacademy}<br>
<strong>Population under 18:</strong> {pct_under_18}%</p>
<p>Compiled for Drop Everything and Read Day using state-level book-interest studies and ACS 2023 Census profile data. We love you Ramona Quimby!!! We miss you Beverly Cleary.</p>
</div>
There should be a toggle switch in the upper-right of the map to switch between Children’s / Young Adult.
When toggled, have the book covers change to the appropriate book cover for that book type in each state. You may tile book covers to fill each state.
Splash screen title at start that is open in a modal:
Title: Happy Drop Everything and Read Day
Subtitle (60% font size of title): Top Children’s and Young Adult Book Google Searches by State
Beneath, a brief bit about “DEAR” Day and Beverly Cleary.
Sources for the data spelled out.
Smaller and more subtle font:
List of tools used to make the map: APIs, Made with WebMapGPT (webmapgpt.com), Ian Muehlenhaus (linkedin.com/in/ianmule), Map Design Commission of the ICA (mapdesign.icaci.org), and with links to the websites where applicable and Ian’s LinkedIn profile are. Provenance link.
I’m attaching an EXCEL dataset and some data source and provenance information. Thanks!