Challenging Challenges

For the past couple of years, my reading list has been filled with required texts and journal articles for graduate courses. Now that I'm taking a little siesta from grad courses, I have all kinds of time and energy to devote to reading what I want to read. And believe me, it won't be textbooks!

My first love in reading is Young Adult Lit. Sure, I love Shakespeare and poetry and heavy American Lit, but there is something so fresh and exciting about reading a great YA title and putting it into students' hands. I try to read one YA title per week, but I'll have to amp up that goal if I ever hope to achieve the "Super Size Me" level of the YA Reading Challenge. I've already started a couple of titles that will count toward this goal. Luckily, I'm joining another challenge where I count my titles twice!

The next one (and it sort of relates to the first) is the To Be Read Challenge for 2010. I have many, many titles on my To Be Read Shelf at home. I've already selected twelve YA titles and twelve alternate YA titles that I can use for this challenge. And, the beauty of this challenge is that I don't have to go out and purchase any new books because they're already waiting for me at home. Good stuff.

The last challenge (I think--but there could be more!) that I'm going to participate in this coming year is the 2010 Bibliophilic Book Challenge. This one intrigues me because it requires me to read books that are about reading. The books can be fiction or nonfiction, but need to be about reading. I have a number of books at home that I've been wanting to read that fit this criteria, and several more on my amazon wishlist. This challenge appeals to the teacher in me. I've posted more about this challenge on my professional blog.

So, there it is. In looking at this post, I feel confident that I will be able to read the hundred or so books that I have sworn to read this coming year. I hope that this inspires you all to check out the dozens of reading (and writing) challenges that exist in cyberspace. It's a pretty awesome way to interact with others around books and reading. Good luck and get reading!