2011 Challenges

Last year was my first year blogging consistently, and my first time participating in any challenges. I got the most out of my participation in the 2010 Debut Author Challenge, and I'm excited to read as many or more debut authors this year. I ended up reading 24 by the end of 2010, though I also admit that I stopped counting in December. Go here to sign up for the 2011 Challenge. I will be posting my titles here.

This year I'm also going to join the PoC Reading Challenge. I teach in a not-at-all diverse school in a suburb, so I think it is especially important to expose by students to diverse titles. Here are my titles for that challenge.

Finally, I have set some personal challenges for myself in addition to my 365 book resolution. I started a shelf on Goodreads to keep track of how many books I already owned on January 1 that I read in 2011. I am going to make progress on the many series that I have started and not finished.

I also bought and plan to read all of the Stonewall, Schneider, Coretta Scott King, and Non-fiction award winners and honored titles from the recent ALA Youth Media Awards. I've loved the titles from those lists that I have read so far. I may or may not read the Printz books. Ship Breaker was already in my pile, but the titles on the list are pretty dark for my taste. Same goes for the Morris list (thought I LOVED Guardian of the Dead and Hold Me Closer, Necromancer is on my shelf), and I know I won't read many Newbery books since MG historical fiction is not my genre. 

I was thinking about challenges a few weeks ago, and also considering how to bump up the reading by my students. This is my second year with the same group, and while the majority are on board and excited about books, a few are still dragging. I was also reading The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller, and decided to switch from required daily reading to a required number of books by the end of the year. (Note: I did not actually tell my students that I'm not requiring 30 minutes per night, I'm just going to stop taking away points when they fail to do it.)

I came up with this: The Twenty Book Challenge. For most of my students, twenty books won't be a problem, especially since they are allowed some early readers and graphic novels. I'll keep you all updated on how it goes.