A Shameless Attempt to Read More Books

I wouldn't call myself a competitive person.  I was never the kid who would freely take a dare, and would probably run screaming from just the words "Double Dog." I'm not coordinated enough to be a competitive athlete, and I'm just as likely to not purchase Marvin Gardens when playing Monopoly if I know you're trying to collect that real estate.  But, give me a personal best challenge, a competition against me and myself,  and it's a whole different story.

Reading Lady by Sadie Wendell Mitchell, 1909

As an elementary school librarian I'm constantly trying to think of ways to engage my students to read more books.  Sharing book trailers, author interviews and videos, and creative book displays are all tactics I've gleefully tackled in shameless attempts to get kids to read.  And most recently I've started thinking about personal reading challenges. 

Personal Reading Challenge

A personal reading challenge is, in my mind, a guide that a reader can use to help them focus their reading and perhaps even increase the amount of what is being read. These challenges can be participated in privately or publicly.  There are some fantastic Reading Challenges available in the library world, for example, I've followed with fascination the work of elementary librarians, Colby Sharp and Mr. Schu who have created the Newbery Medal Reading challenge as well as the work of the busy Librarian and his yearly Shelf Challenge.  Both of these challenges inspired me to look at what I did as a teacher librarian to encourage my students to read, read, read.

My first attempt at a student Reader's Challenge focused on the different genres that were available to read in the library.  My students could pick up a copy of a reader's passport and read their way around the library focusing on one genre at a time.  Students could have their passports stamped when they checked out a book from a specific genre and those who read their way around all of the highlighted genres could add their name to a display of Well-Traveled Readers.

A similar Reader's Challenge that I've sponsored in the library is Library READ-O (similar to bingo).  Students used individual READ-O sheets to help them select titles for check out and kept track of the books they read on their game sheets.  Students could work for a traditional bingo or for the more motivated, a complete black-out (reading all suggested).  This fall I'm considering creating a Reading Challenge list for my students similar to the list shown here.

Taking the Challenge

Summer is the perfect time to tackle a Reading Challenge and this weekend I'm diving right in with a 48 Hour Reading Challenge! I won't be going it alone though - I've convinced my husband and 8 year old to join me.  We've stacked our books, selected our snacks, and plumped up our pillows.  This weekend we'll be taking the challenge (competing for our personal best) to read, read, and read some more.

Game on.

Non Listed - My Summer Reading

 The dust has cleared, the inventory has been completed.  The bedside alarm has been set permanently to snooze (at least for the next two months anyway). A beach was walked and the garden has sprouted, it's time to dive into my non listed list of summer reading!

As an elementary librarian I read a lot of books - there are the books I'm reading weekly as part of a lesson, the books I'm reading for teachers as I compile resource materials, and the books, old and new that are part of my library that I'm exploring or reacquainting myself with. But this is just the beginning, the tip of a literacy glacier with only surface reading exposed to the naked eye.  I find that despite my best efforts during the school year I just can't read every book I've recorded on my want-to-read lists, let alone on my mental lists - there's the new award winner, the book recently reviewed in the School Library Journal, or the popular book from my collection that checks out as soon as it checks back in. Even as I stand in line with the copy that caught my eye at the bookstore, outlet mall, and grocery store I know my time is limited.  A decision had to be made - then suddenly I figured it out.  I didn't need a summer reading list - I just needed to take a good look around.

Building my non list

Every summer it's the same, after the first couple of weeks of toe dipping into summer - I start to get serious and the search begins.  The search for each and every book that has accumulated during the school year,  waiting, covers beckoning, biding their time, knowing it was just a matter of time.

 They're Everywhere.

I find them in the work bags I brought home for summer, the back seat of my car, the pocket in the recliner, resting on the baker's rack behind the dining room table, on top of the piano, the box under the guest bed, the cranny behind the computer, stacked on the kitchen counter, and nestled in the magazine rack, tucked into the spaces below my nightstand and precariously perched on the corner of my dresser - I seek them all and pile them together into multiple towers that simultaneously make me want to laugh a bit maniacally as well as step back in surprise.  My summer reading list has just come together.  The trick is to read the stacks down faster than the accumulation of more must reads. I relish this challenge and summer is the perfect time for this!

Let the summer reading begin!