A Challenge

In 2007 I took a children's literature class as part of my teacher education program. It involved a ton of reading and even more work, but I loved every second of it (at least I do now, but I'm sure I whined my fair share while I was in the class). As part of the class, we read The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease. It's fabulous and I think anybody who works with children (parents, teachers, etc.) should be required to read it. As someone who was read to all throughout childhood, I was already sold on reading aloud, but this book still taught me much. One of the interesting statistics from the handbook is the average number of books an adult reads in a year. I'm too lazy to look it up, but I remember it being something ridiculously low like seven. Seven books a year!! And that's the average!!! Shocking, huh? Well, maybe not shocking, but definitely sad.

Anyway, there really is a point to my story. It was around then that I resolved to never fit that average. So far, I have easily succeeded. Then sometime in late 2008 I decided a challenge for myself was in store. I halfheartedly began my new trek at the start of 2009, but it really was unrealistic then. Student teaching is about an 80-hour a week job. Add on a large house to clean, Miriam to tend to and Owen gone nearly every evening working, I was in over my head with just that. Now, I'm committing to it wholeheartedly this time.




The challenge: read a book a week (approximately -- some books take longer and some less). That's all. It's simple, and definitely attainable, but challenging still (for me, at least). I actually started doing the challenge a few months ago, but since it's the new year, I figured 52 books in 52 weeks would be a fun idea. Feel free to chug along with me, or at the very least, promise me you'll read more than 7 books this year!