Reading Wrap-Up

I popped into a branch of the San Francisco library & read this while my family patiently waited.

They had this fun art in the library in San Francisco.

We've been out in California visiting relatives so I am late to the party with my year-end wrap-up. It's fun to look at all of  the books that I got to read this year for different reading challenges, reviewing  and just because.

Overall, I read 660 books. That sounds like a lot, but many of them were picture books. 

Alyson Beecher over at Kid Lit Frenzy hosts a Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge. This year I did manage to read more non-fiction picture books. It appears that I read 86 books this year that I shelved as young non-fiction. Some of them may not have been picture books, but the vast majority were. I'm glad she has inspired me and others to read more non-fiction.

I also participated in the Latin@s in Kid Lit Reading Challenge. They encouraged us to read one book a month written by Latin@s or that featured Latin@ characters or culture.  I read 88 books for this challenge. Half-way through the year I decided to read all of the Pura Belpré award books and have been working my way through them. It's been fantastic.

Another great challenge was Diversity on the Shelf. She had various levels of participation suggested. My goal was to read 25+ books this year. It looks like I read 283, if I remembered to tag all of them properly. I didn't review every single one, but posted as many as I could to Alysia's blog. She did a wonderful job with the challenge and gave out some prizes along the way. I even won a set of books!

For The 2014 Africa Reading Challenge hosted by Kinna Reads we were meant to read at least five books set in at least two regions in Africa. I read 15 for this challenge. I noticed that it was easiest to find books set in Nigeria or that were written by Nigerian authors. Other than Americanah, I didn't seek out the books and just read what came my way. This year I want to read some of the books Kinna recommended.

This #MustReadin2014 Challenge was hosted by the lovely Carrie Gelson. This is the challenge that was less successful for me. One of the reasons was that the list that I created at the beginning of the year was huge - a whopping 110 books! That was way too structured for me since I am more of a grazer. Also, it contained all of the Printz award books. Midway through the year, I decided to switch over to the Pura Belpré award list instead. I took my eyes of the list, but I still managed to finish 58 of them. This year I plan to be more deliberate about my "must reads."

I also planned to keep plugging away at the Caldecotts. This year I only read 15 of them. I stopped around the same time I started to read the Pura Belpré books. Even so, to date, I have read 158 Caldecott honor books and winners. I think there are about 300 of them (and we'll get more later this year) so I still have a long way to go. I'm not going to worry too much about them though and will just read them as I stumble on them.

Whew! Now I'll start trying to focus on my plans for this year. Happy reading!