My kiddos and I just completed various levels of our library’s winter reading challenge. The challenge begins in late November and concludes in late February. It was a lot of fun! I’m so grateful for our librarians who put so much creativity into these fun programs! This particular challenge certainly makes the coldest part of winter a bit more enjoyable.
All together we completed the “family challenge” by reading aloud together for 55 days. We earned a new family game!
My oldest son (age 12) and I also completed various levels of the teen/adult challenge. We completed some regionally specific trivia questions and read books that fit into fun/creative/interesting categories.
Part one of the challenge– my son’s prize was 2 mini notebooks, my prize was post-it notes and a sharpie marker.
- Historical Fiction: “Blue Willow” by Doris Gates & “The Perilous Road” by William O. Steele
- Book with either “star” or “wars” in the title: “Lost Star: The Story of Amelia Earhart” by Patricia Lauber & “From a Certain Point of View: 40 Stories Celebrating 40 Years of Star Wars”
- Book with a white cover: “Pablo and Birdy” by Alison McGhee & “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Part 2 of the challenge – the prize for this level was a zippered tech pouch.
- Book with the silhouette of a person on the cover: “Peter Pan” by James Barrie & “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens
- Try a new dish from a cookbook you checked out from the library: Hoppin’ John (Pg 18-19) from The Pioneer Woman Cooks―A Year of Holidays: 140 Step-by-Step Recipes for Simple, Scrumptious Celebrations by Ree Drummond. And Flatbread Pizza, Pesto Pasta, and Veggie Burgers from The Vegetarian Cookbook for Kids: Easy, Skill-Building Recipes for Young Chefs by Jamaica Stevens
- Book by an author whose last name ends in a vowel: “Journey to the Center of the Earth” by Jules Verne & “Who Was Stephen Hawking?” by Jim Gigliotti
- Book that makes you happy: “Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools: An Invitation to the Wonder and Mystery of Prayer” by Tyler Staton & “How to Train Your Dragon” by Cressida Cowell
- Write a “thank you” card to someone who has made your day better!
Part 3 of the challenge – we didn’t complete this part of the challenge in time but here are the categories…
- Book set in the Southern Hemisphere: I’ve got “In Search of the Castaways” by Jules Verne in our read-aloud queue.
- A cozy mystery: I’ve been wanting to read the “Mandie” series by Lois Gladys Shepard aloud to the kiddos for awhile.
- Check out a movie you haven’t seen before: “Journey to the Center of the Earth” (2008) starring Brendan Fraser – this movie was pretty cheesy and entertaining, it made me and my husband laugh! We didn’t show it to the kiddos because the teenage boy has a crush on the female lead that’s a little uncomfortable, and the man-eating plants and dinosaur chase scenes were a bit intense for my sensitive ones. We also borrowed “The Lego Movie” which everyone enjoyed immensely.
- Book set during winter: Our current read aloud is “Winterbound” by Margery Williams Bianco.
We hope this post inspires you to visit your local library, try some of the challenges we listed here, or read some of our book recommendations!
As always, thanks for following us or stopping by for a visit!
heavens to betty 
Love it! Such fun challenges! How was Blue Willow? We have that one coming up in our history curriculum soon. We just finished reading “By the Great Horn Spoon!” Have you guys read it? It’s really good. Both of my kiddos enjoyed it…and so did I. It has an old Disney movie based on it called the Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin but I’ve only just started previewing it so I don’t know if I can recommend it or not.
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That’s funny! We just watched “the adventures of bullwhip griffin”. It was kind of weird, but the kids got some laughs out of it!! It’s not on my top must see movie list, but it wasn’t too terrible. Maybe too much fighting with all the boxing matches and obviously outdated cultural depictions of Chinese immigrants. They dubbed over some racist language. We have not yet red “by the great horn spoon”, but it’s in the queue.
We really enjoyed “blue willow”. My mom had a large collection of that China. I thought the book was really wonderful.
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Sounds like it derails from the book quite a bit then (like most movies based on good books unfortunately). There’s only one boxing match in the book, and the characters always treat the Chinese well in the book. Anyway, you will certainly enjoy the book! And great, looking forward to Blue Willow then! We have to read the books on the transcontinental railroad, John Muir, and the African American experience at the time first and then we move to Esparanza Rising and Blue Willow.
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Esperanza Rising is also one I want to read. Let me know when you start that one and maybe we can read it “together-ish”.
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I always enjoy your posts about books and the library challenges; they bring back a lot of memories.
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Thanks Linda Lou!
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Great job!! Once again, I learn so much about books and what to consider next time. Thanks!!
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I have lots of places I get book ideas from. The library challenges are so fun because they stretch our reading list to include things we might not have considered otherwise. We love librarians!
I also just bought that book you posted, “she rises late and her kids make her breakfast”. So thank you for the book ideas too!
What are you reading right now?
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We should try out the libraries too! It’s great that you met good librarians to stretch your reading list. I’m gonna have to get proactive and seek out their knowledge.
Let me know how you like that book! It’s on my list but I have a few to get through first.
I started reading Holy Hygge; it’s an online book club I mentioned to you last time. I think her username is storied homeschooler? Just finished reading Meaning in the Making by Sean Tucker. I’m still trying to process that one…lots of discussion about how we humans are wired to create and how to be true to one’s art; whatever that is. Written by a photographer and filmmaker from the UK.
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We listened to “Island of the Blue Dolphins” on Audible and that was really great. Good historical fiction!
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