Jings! Crivvens! Oor Wullie's beaten vampires and record-breakers to top Christmas book list

JINGS, crivvens and help ma Boab, as Oor Wullie might say, for the much-loved comic character has fought off bloodsuckers and record-breakers to be declared the top Scottish children's read of 2010.

Booksellers Waterstone's yesterday revealed that the new Oor Wullie annual has topped the charts as Scotland's best-selling children's book this Christmas, just as the character prepares to celebrate his 75th birthday.

He heads a top five otherwise dominated by vampire romance novels from the Twilight series created by the best-selling American author, Stephenie Meyer.

The adventures of the dungaree-clad schoolboy Wullie McCallum and his ubiquitous upturned bucket, drawn by illustrator Dudley D Watkins, first appeared in The Sunday Post on 8 March, 1936. And the first Oor Wullie annual hit the bookshelves in 1940.

Seventy years on, more than 50,000 copies of the 2011 Oor Wullie annual have been sold in Waterstone's stores in Scotland. In second place was The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, a companion novella to the Twilight series created by Ms Meyer.

Two volumes in the Twilight saga, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn, came fourth and fifth in the top selling chart with The Guinness World Records 2011 in third.

A Waterstone's spokesman said the success of the latest Oor Wullie annual showed that a Scottish institution, older than most grandparents, was still proving a hit with the younger generation.

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He said: "If Oor Wullie isn't in the record books, he should be. Everywhere else is dominated by Stephenie Meyer's vampires, werewolves and mixed-up teens, but Wullie holds them all at bay in Waterstone's Scottish shops. Congratulations Wullie."

Morris Heggie, the current Oor Wullie editor, said he was not surprised at the enduring appeal of the spiky haired cartoon character. He said: "Oor Wullie is unique. He is sort of based in the 50s. But the trick is to keep a fresh perspective and to contemporise the strips all the time, even with this figure that looks out of the 50s with the dungarees and the tackety boots.

"The storylines are not out and out hold your sides belly laughs. They are observations which readers can recognise."

He added "There is no doubt that we sell as many Oor Wullie annuals to older fans as we do to younger ones.

"And he is as popular as he has ever been. He has become a sort of iconic Scottish figure."

The top five Christmas books were announced as the Scottish Government declared plans to continue to work to improve the reading abilities of Scots of all ages through its Literacy Action Plan. It includes a range of initiatives from early years through to employment, aimed at eradicating illiteracy.