Books written by famous names or those turned into blockbuster films are more popular with today's youngsters than traditional favourites by authors such as Roald Dahl, according to research.

It suggests a disconnect between what pupils are reading in schools - where the exploits of Matilda, Fantastic Mr Fox and the Wimpy Kid remain common - and the tales they would rather be delving into, such as Harry Potter, the Demon Dentist and the Hunger Games.

The findings also suggest that children are turning their backs on difficult books after they start secondary school.

The latest annual What Kids Are Reading survey is based on an analysis of software that assesses the books children read and their understanding of those stories.

More than 508,000 pupils in 2,257 schools took over nine million quizzes giving details of the books they had read and their favourites.

The results showed that the "most read" charts at both primary and secondary level were dominated by Jeff Kinney and Dahl.

But many spots on the "most popular" lists were commanded by J.K. Rowling, Suzanne Collins, who wrote the Hunger Games trilogy, and Cassandra Clare, who penned The Mortal Instruments series.

These are novels that have tended to appear on the big screen.

The "most read" chart indicates the amount of times a book was read in school, while the "popular" ranking indicates the books that children enjoyed the most.

One author - David Walliams - does appear frequently in both lists, particularly for primary schools, with youngsters both reading and enjoying the adventures of the Demon Dentist and Gangsta Granny.

The most read book for primary schools was The Twits, by Roald Dahl.

Between them, Dahl and Wimpy Kid author Kinney took all but one place in the most read list for this age group.

The seventh spot was taken by Walliams's Gangsta Granny.

Walliams took top spot among the most popular book for primary school children with Demon Dentist, followed by Everything's Amazing (sort of) by Liz Pichon and Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

In secondary schools, the most read book was Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

The author took eight out of the 10 top spots for the series, with Collins's Hunger Games in fourth and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in tenth place.

John Green's The Fault in our Stars, which has recently been made into a film, was the most popular novel among secondary school pupils, followed by Catching Fire, the second instalment of the Hunger Games trilogy, and Divergent by Veronica Roth.

Report author Professor Keith Topping said: "This year's findings reveal a sharp contrast in the difficulty rating between primary and secondary pupils.

"Primary school pupils, particularly in Years 1 to 5, show a strong preference for challenging books which are significantly beyond their natural reading age.

"We then see a marked difference in Year 7 where favoured books are no longer above chronological age, but six months below it and in ensuing years the difficulty of books plateaus or declines."