Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Reading and challenges and reading challenges

I love to read. I've often said that I am one of the luckiest people around to find a job where my skills are in play - a love of books, understanding of technology integrations and a dash of nerdiness. Unfortunately, my job will be changing a bit next year - reassignment within the school - but that does not mean I cannot keep up with some of my loves.

I recently completed the Hub Reading Challenge. It was a joy and a pleasure to be a participant in this challenge and opened my eyes (literally I guess!) to so many books. For this challenge you had to read or listen to 25 books taken from the YALSA award list. The list can be found here. I had read several of the books previous to the challenge and had read all the Non-Fiction and Morris nominated books for a separate challenge. The ones I'd read independently I had to reread - the Non-Fiction and Morris nominated ones counted towards my list. I am waiting for some to come back from students to reread, but that's just icing on the cake - I have my 25 (28 actually, 30 if you count my reading some that were supposed to be audio books!). I read the following (goodreads list):
  1. Love and Other Perishable Items
  2. The Miseducation of Cameron Post
  3. After the Snow
  4. Bomb: The Race to Build - and Steal - the World's Most Dangerous Weapon
  5. We've Got a Job: The 1962 Birmingham Children's March
  6. Wonder Show
  7. Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thoughts Different
  8. Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95
  9. Seraphina
  10. Titanic: Voices from the Disaster
  11. Prom and Prejudice
  12. My Friend Dahmer
  13. Every Day
  14. In Darkness
  15. Enchanted
  16. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
  17. The Name of the Star
  18. The Fault in our Stars
  19. The Diviners
  20. Ultimate Comics Spider-Man Vol 1
  21. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
  22. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
  23. I Hunt Killers
  24. Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb
  25. Code Name Verity
  26. October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard
  27. The Running Dream
  28. Somebody, Please Tell Me Who I Am

If you go to my goodreads list it will link you to the covers, author names and general reviews by those who have read the books. If I can I will be trying to read seven more before the deadline (June 22nd). Some of these will be easy - there's at least three on the list that I just need to get back. Others I might have to pick up - worth it for a good book!

I've committed myself to the Nerdy Book Club Fifth Annual #bookaday Challenge. One book for every day of the summer. I can do it! 73 books in 73 days is not a bad thing. Some will be rereads but sounds like it's about the pace I read anyway!

At this point, I won't be a librarian next year. But that doesn't mean I can't continue my loud librarian ways. Resource units, book resources, reading challanges - it's all still part of being an educator! The challenge will be, of course, finding the time to continue what I do as a full time job, while I do a different full time job. I suspect I'll be the teacher who goes to the library with her classes the most!

And to end, my new lego minifig. If only this girl had bright red hair!