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!

Reading Challenge Update

It's been awhile since I have done an update for my reading challenges so this took awhile to put together and I have a lot of great titles to share.

For the Latin@s in Kid Lit Challenge, the expectation is that participants read at least one book a month written by a Latino@ author or featuring a Latin@ character. I have read 32 so far this year (most are picture books, but 8 were novels and a few were non-fiction).  Here are some of my favorites so far:

For The 2014 Africa Reading Challenge hosted by Kinna Reads we are meant to read at least five books set in at least two regions in Africa. I started this challenge later in the year than the others. I've read four picture books and three chapter books (listed here) so have met the minimum, but I would still like to read some of her suggested books like Maps by Nuruddin Farah or The Prophet of Zongo Street. My overall favorites so far have been Long Walk to Water, Americanah, and Akata Witch.

Diversity on the Shelf is hosted by My Little Pocketbooks and encourages readers to read books written by or about people of color. By the way, this is a great way to support the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign. I chose the 25+ level for 2014. The other challenges I am doing feed into this one so the numbers are way higher. I have read over 130 at this point. The list is here. And here are some of my favorites:

The #MustReadin2014 Challenge hosted by Carrie Gelson will officially post updates in July, but since I was already reporting on everything else, I figured I might as well add this too. This challenge is one to help encourage readers to finally get to some of the books on our TBR that have been waiting. I moved 110 books from my TBR to my Must Read shelf and have been plugging away at them though I haven't read as many lately as I would like. I have managed to get to 36/110 of them and I look forward to getting more finished during summer #bookaday. All of the favorites from this list were also on the Diversity on the Shelf list.

Whew! This has been a great year of reading so far. :)

Reading Olympics?

There are so many reading challenges that I want to do, but I would have to stop doing everything else to be able to complete them all. I am participating in several. In fact, I am not sure how many, but by the end of this post we will know.

I started out with the Latin@s in Kid Lit and Diversity on the Shelf Challenge. They overlap so it's almost like one right? Then I added the Africa Reading Challenge. Somewhere along the line I also added the #MustReadin2014 challenge and then added #50BooksbyPOC. With many of these five challenges, a book qualifies for more than one. Recently, I started the Geisel Challenge too. That one is the easiest simply because the books are so short and I have almost all of them in our school library so they are easy to locate, but this challenge doesn't overlap with many of the others since there isn't a lot of cultural diversity going on with that award. Part of that issue is that so many of the books have main characters that are animals so it makes a bit of sense.

Where am I keeping track of all of the challenges? Goodreads. I have a shelf for each of them. So here is the update:

Latin@s in Kid Lit 21/12
Diversity on the Shelf 84/25+
Africa 6/5
Must Read in 2014 26/110
50 Books by POC 24/50
Geisel Challenge 9/39

I should do okay as long as I don't add any more of them. Oh, I guess this is where I mention that I am still muddling through the 2012 NerdPrintz (43/71 since Jan 2012) and the 2012 NerdCott (100 to of ???) too. All of the Printz books that are left are on my Must Read shelf. I am also plugging away at the Caldecotts whenever the opportunity arises since I never finished it either. It's a crazy crazy reading year, but I am loving it. After all of this updating, it appears that I am actively participating in six challenges and am still chipping away at two old ones for a grand total of 8. Ooops. Wish me luck.