Every year since I had started back actively reading, I tried to follow a reading challenge. While I of course set a book goal on Goodreads for how many books I wanted to read, I also attempted to find reading challenges that had different categories. This was a way to force me to read more books that I may not normally come across. 

The first time I tried a reading challenge was in 2018. I was overly ambitious with that one (I chose a 52 book one). Not only that, but I started it midway through the year at the same time that I started my internship. Needless to say, I did not complete this reading challenge. Over the years, I have read some of the books on the list, but I have yet to completely finish it.

I skipped doing an official reading challenge in 2019, but that was the year that I began reading more, and I began working at the library. Because of this, I decided to try out another reading challenge in 2020. Add to a pandemic that forced me to stay home, I had plenty of time to read. 

My reading challenge that year was another 52 category one, and once again, I did not complete it. 

You would think by this point that I would learn to lower my expectations, and shockingly I did!

In 2021, I found a different reading challenge. This one allowed me to choose my own prompts and choose how many of them I wanted to do. 

I thought this was perfect. I even had the books selected and when I would read them. I even had a great start with the challenge as I completed the books I wanted to during the first part of the year. 

However, when I got my teaching job, I became so busy trying to prepare for school that I let some things fall apart. While I eventually read some more on the list, I once again did not finish my reading challenge. 

This year, I decided to not worry about a reading challenge. My main goal is to just continue reading as many books as I can. 

Working with my sixth graders, I’m realizing that most of them don’t have that enthusiasm to read like my friends and I did when we were in that grade. A lot of them hate the idea of reading and writing, and I’m saddened by this. I hope to model an enthusiasm for reading to get them invested as well.

While I may eventually try a formal reading challenge again in the future, it’s not going to be this year.