Calling all readers!
It’s a day of rejoicing because the Summer Reading Challenge 2021 is here! If you can believe it, this is the sixth summer of the challenge.
If this is your first year, welcome! If you’ve been doing this challenge from the beginning, does this happen to you now? With the turning of April into May, I have begun to notice a low buzz of reading excitement. I think to myself, “It’s coming!”
Left to my own, I will read the same kind of book over and over, always meaning to get to other types of books. I will not make time to read certain kind of books because I have work, responsibilities, and intentions that, it turns out, are very weak intentions. So, thank you one and all of joining in and during this challenge we all become more well-rounded readers!
It will start on June 1 and run through August 13, 2021. To enter, read seven books from 25 categories.
What is different?
- A few new categories
- No COVID focus this year
- A nod to the Olympics
What is the same?
- Many categories will be similar because reading is reading. But you will notice a few new gems
- Counting a book of more than 700 pages as two books.
- Choosing a penalty book within the first week of the challenge. A penalty book or category is one you declare to yourself I will read or be penalized. The last three summers I have selected a penalty book and it worked! I read books I’d been meaning to read for ages and I am all the richer for reading them. This year The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough is my penalty book. Can I tell you how many years I’ve meant to read this book?! This is the summer!
- Like previous years, if you do not read your “penalty” book, you will subtract two books from your total.
What’s in it for you?
- All who comment between August 12-15th with the names of the books they read will be entered to win one of ten $10 Amazon gift cards.
Drumroll . . . here are the categories!
- A Biography
- A book I already own
- A book a friend recommended
- A Young Adult book (YA)
- A book with a great cover
- A book of poetry
- A memoir or autobiography
- A graphic novel
- A book for professional development (loosely defined)
- A book longer than 700 pages (counts as two books)
- A book with a verb in the title
- A play
- A book about a country or culture you have never visited
- A book about history
- A book that won an award
- A book by someone with a different view point than you
- A mystery
- A classic
- A novel
- An audiobook
- A book with an animal
- A book less than 100 pages
- A book You want to discuss with others
- A book you read as a child
In honor of the Olympics and because my first “sports injury” was inspired by the Olympics:
- A book involving the Olympics, sports, or Japan
(Pro tip: Do not do a cartwheel that starts by you standing on a piano bench and ends with you on the floor screaming in pain, and gets worse because you lie to your mom as you realize, even in the midst of severe pain, how dumb it was to seriously injured your wrist by falling more than four feet onto it with no training (or common sense!). Good news, the x-ray showed that unlike my pride, the bone was not broken!)
Download the 2021 Summer Reading Challenge
Download the Summer Reading Challenge 2021, print it off, and track your progress. But most of all, have fun and read books you might not read in other times of the year!
My penalty book is The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough.
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In short: Read seven books from June 1 to August 13, 2021.
Are you in? What books are you looking forward to reading during the challenge?
I’m in again!
So enjoyed it last year – will definitely be taking part this year. Thanks for organizing it again.
I always start, but never finish! THIS YEAR IT”S GOING TO HAPPEN!
YES! Count me in! The penalty book really challenges me to read that book that’s been staring at me all year long. :)
Amy! Every year you post this and every year I say I’m going to do it, but now’s the time! I’ll be reading anyway, so this will give me some structure and make sure I read out of my summer comfort zone a bit. Love the penalty book idea!
Yes, I’m in. I have 12 categories checked off that I can choose from, so I think I will make it this year.
My penalty book is “Turn to Stone” An Ellie Stone Mystery by James W. Ziskin, set in Florence, Italy in 1963 during a Rubella outbreak.
I’m DETERMINED to finish well this year (as opposed to past years of failure!
Question: Is it cheating to start reading my choices before June 1?
Receiving your blog post confused me, Amy! I didn’t think summer was coming anytime soon, even in the Northern Hemisphere, haha. Didn’t we just have Christmas? But then I realized it’s mid-May, therefore summer is indeed a coming in. :) After an ensuing moment of “yikes”, I was suddenly super-excited that 2021 is passing so quickly, because your summer reading challenges are the best! It’s been fun participating the last couple years, and I’m definitely in for this summer. Thank you!
Do you (or anyone out there) have recommendations for titles available on Amazon Kindle Unlimited? I have it for 6 more weeks, so it will be perfect for the reading challenge!
I’m in!
This is my fourth attempt to comment. It doesn’t seem to matter what email account or device I use; it never shows up. But I’m in again, and my penalty book is Jade City by Fonda Lee.