It’s Martin Luther King Jr’s Birthday Weekend, and it’s time for a Long Weekend Award Reading Challenge!
Here’s the thing: I was on the Morris Award selection committee last year, but I didn’t take myself off the Mathical Book Prize selection committee. We finished our Morris reading in December, and it went to my head a little. I got out a jigsaw puzzle and read a Christmas novel, among other things. I had plenty of time!
Well, this year I think we’ve got a few more of the longer children’s books to consider, but whatever the reason, I should have worked on this sooner. Our short reviews of the eligible books are due this coming Monday, and I have 9 more books to finish.
Now, two of the books (one fiction and one nonfiction) are almost done. All of them are pretty short. Especially compared to the young adult books I was reading for the Morris.
During my Newbery reading, I learned that I can read a children’s novel at the rate of approximately 100 pages per hour. During my Morris reading, I learned that for young adult novels, it’s more like 60 pages per hour. Using those figures, I estimate that it will take me 21 hours to finish the 9 books. And I’ve got 3 days, so it just means 7 hours per day.
Besides, this kind of marathon reading is exactly what I do when I tackle a 48-Hour Book Challenge!
Last July, I got 18 hours of reading done in 48 hours. So surely I can do 21 hours in 72.
The difference, though, is that I usually add to my time by listening to audiobooks while I prepare food or do other necessary tasks. But I don’t have any of these mathical books on audio. So that’s going to make it trickier. I also am hoping I can still go for walks on Saturday and Monday, go to church on Sunday, and do things like laundry and other weekend chores – but again, won’t be able to count listening while I do them. I also want to have my daily devotional time, which I count as reading for the 48-Hour Book Challenge, but can’t for this. I will only count reading for the Mathical Book Prize, plus writing short reviews.
I had planned to get started tonight — but it’s already past midnight, and I need to go to bed! And that happened because I did my usual chore of paying bills on Friday night and cooked dinner and then thought I could just post a review before I started the reading, and one thing led to another and now it’s late.
So this is my challenge. Can I read for approximately 21 hours on this long weekend and finish reading 9 children’s and young adult books and write short reviews? I’m going to try!
Happy Reading!