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Michelle Obama and a Wonky Donkey make the Christmas bestseller list

Michelle Obama is the first woman of colour to top the Christmas bestseller list in the UK - Invision
Michelle Obama is the first woman of colour to top the Christmas bestseller list in the UK - Invision

The tale of a three-legged donkey has become a surprise Christmas bestseller thanks to a viral video of a grandmother reading it to her grandson.

Wonky Donkey is the first book for preschoolers to make the top 10 Christmas chart since records began 25 years ago, according to figures compiled by Nielsen BookScan.

Written by Craig Smith, a New Zealander, it had been selling steadily in the southern hemisphere since its release in 2009. But it became a sensation in the UK after Janice Clark, a Scottish grandmother now living in Australia, was filmed reading it to four-month-old Archer.

She could not get through the rhyming story without dissolving in fits of giggles and the video, posted in August, has been viewed millions of times on YouTube and Facebook.

Mrs Clark now has her own YouTube channel reading stories to Archer, and Smith is celebrating a remarkable sales boost. It sold 29,312 copies in the seven days leading up to December 15, the week traditionally used to measure Christmas best-seller figures, making it the seventh most popular book in the list.

The biggest-seller was Michelle Obama’s Becoming, knocking David Walliams off the top spot for the first time in three years.

Mrs Obama has sold 91,882 copies in the UK in the last week, making her the first person of colour to claim the Christmas number one and the first woman to top the list since JK Rowling in 2008.

It is also the highest sales figure for a Christmas number one since Alex Ferguson’s autobiography five years ago. In total, Becoming has sold 485,000 copies in the UK and Ireland to become the fastest-selling non-fiction book of the year.