It’s time for a 24-Hour Book Blitz!
And yes, I’m using the 48-Hour Book Challenge logo that my friend Pam, who once posted at Mother Reader, created. This is a half-time challenge for President’s Day.
Here’s the thing: I’m on the Morris Committee this year!
The Morris Award is for the best young adult debut book of the year. The eligibility is well-defined — a book for teens published between November 1st and October 31st, and it must be the creator or creators’ first published book.
The number of books eligible is much, much smaller than the number of books that were eligible for the Newbery when I was on it in 2019. But the thing is — it’s still more books than one person can read. But since the task is finite, we’re going to try to have at least two people from the committee read every eligible book. And everybody read the books that are nominated by at least two people.
I already have a list of 95 eligible books, and this is just the beginning of the year.
And — because I was on the Cybils and Mathical committees at the end of last year — so far I have only read 3 books eligible for the Morris! So I am starting out way behind.
To make matters worse, except in a good way, I’m doing a program for other youth services staff in my library system on February 27 about this year’s award winners — and I very much want to read more of the winners before the program.
So during my Book Blitz, the first thing I’m going to do is try to narrow down the books I’m going to read for the Award Winners Program, and try to get started on Morris books.
The committee has agreed that we expect everyone to read two eligible books per week. And I have promised myself that I won’t go to my gaming group on Sundays unless I’ve read two Morris books that week. I’m hoping it will be a well-deserved reward!
But now, I’m starting my Book Blitz. The rules are: I’m going for time spent. For the next 24 hours (starting at 10 pm Sunday night), I’m going to record how much time I spend reading books, listening to books, blogging about books, or posting reviews.
I’m not planning to set my alarm – so staying up late may be counter-productive. But it’s time to get busy, and let’s see how I do. Time to read!