Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Fall Into Reading Wrap Up Post

This has been a wonderful, whirlwind reading challenge.  I loved everything about it.  My original list changed the day I became a CYBILS Panelist and a judge for INSPY.  My final count was 137 books.
You can find the link to all of the books read  here.  I would not recommend that someone read this many books in 3 months.  Although I enjoyed most of them there were always a few that I found I didn't really like.  There was one very interesting side-effect to all of this reading.  My mom starting checking the books I was reading.  She doesn't blog or do much except check her email on the computer.  However, she passed on the titles of 22 books that she read during this time.  Some I had to buy for her because they were part of a series and I only had to read one of them.  She has always been a reader but she is thirsting for books now.  Good thing I bought her so many for Christmas.  Another side-effect happened in my classroom at school.  My students started challenging each other.  Their challenge doesn't end until the end of March.  I have several teachers who thought the challenge was ending at Christmas break and reported their number to me.  One in particular had read 17 books and he was one short of his goal.  He was excited to learn he still has a few months.

Due to Cybils I had some favorites that I think everyone should read.  These were my favorites and not necessarily those chosen by my fellow panelists  Because of Mr. Terupt by Rob Buyea, Belly Up by Stuart Gibbs, Boys Without Names by Kashmira Sheth, Stolen Child by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, Shooting Kabul by N.H. Senzai as well as the five Amish fiction books I read for the INSPYs.  I will be writing reviews of them this week.  There were many books for the Cybils I didn't write reviews for.  With a list of 137 books I quickly learned it was impossible to read and write about all of them.

I look forward to this challenge every year.  It pushes me to read more.  I often times let school dictate how much reading I do, especially this year since I'm teaching Language Arts and not Reading.  It has also encouraged my students to keep a running list of books they think I should read and even offer to loan them to me.  With this challenge everyone is a winner.  I don't usually end up reading the books on my list because of CYBILS but it just means I have more to read after the challenge ends.  I have already started a list of which books I want to read next.  My goal is to read a minimum of 10 books in the next week and a half so that I can take several of them in to school when the new year starts.  I can't wait to spend some time reading what everyone else had on their list.  My husband says that is dangerous because I end up finding more books that way.  I love it because he periodically checks that list and buys me books.

I end this challenge on a happy note and look forward to the Spring Challenge and meeting many of your there.  Continue reading.

2 comments:

  1. yay so glad to see that someone read more books than i did for this challenge! of course doing both the Cybils and the Inspys will do that do you!

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  2. Yes. I read a lot anyway. My idea of a perfect day, evening, vacation is to sit with a stack of books and have everyone leave me alone. I keep telling my husband that if he dies I want to have enough money to live in a small cabin, have food delivered and to buy books. LOL

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