Reading Challenges

Hello teens~

Today I wanted to tell you about reading challenges.  A reading challenge is when you read a group of books and you set a goal for yourself.  The goal can be to complete the challenge, or to complete the challenge by a certain date or within a certain timeline.  There are many different ways you can do this. 

You can decide that you want to read a certain number of books or pages by a certain date, or you can challenge yourself to do so many hours of reading by a certain date. 

There are also special challenges that have certain themes, for example, you want to read 10 books by Italian authors by August.  Or, 10 books that were written in the last year or 10 vampire books.  You could also make your goal to read all of this year's Teen Top Ten from YALSA.  (Young Adult Library Services Association)  Maybe you want to keep with our multicultural summer reading theme and read 10 books set in 10 different countries or cultures. 

There are many different kinds of reading challenges, and the summer is a great time to take one on.  I've decided that I'm going to do the A-Z challenge, which is to read a book that the title starts with A, then one that starts with B, and so on until I read a book title that starts with Z.  I'm not setting myself a certain date or timeline to finish this challenge, my goal is just to finish!  I'm starting out with Ask Me No Questions by Marina Budhos.

It's a good time to start thinking about a reading challenge you may want to set for yourself this summer.  Feel free to comment with your plans for a reading challenge for yourself this summer.  Or, if you have questions about how a reading challenge works, comment with that too!  If you have the question, chances are someone else is thinking it too!  If you would not like to comment or ask your question publicly, send me an email at kgardiner@durhamlibrary.org, stop in the library to ask me, or give me a call!

Last of all, good luck!