1500 Book Challenge

Late last spring, when I fist became fascinated (obsessed) with early education, I ran across a lot of bloggers doing a 1500 book challenge.  Since Xander was so young, I couldn't really participate.  I haven't seen anyone doing it yet this year, but have decided to go ahead and try for the 1500 books.

The challenge part of the equation, is that the goal is to read 1500 unique books.  Each book only counts once, no matter how many times you read it.  Now we are lucky enough to have a lot of books, but no where near that many!  To complete the task in a year, we need to read about 28 new books a week, or 4 new books a day.  That is going to involve a LOT of trips to the library.  I have decided not to count any books we listen to from Tumble Books, because I really want to encourage real books and not more screen time.

The additional challenge will be that Xander now likes to make his own decisions.  He LOVES books and loves to be read to, but he has a few books in each room that are his favorites.  He wants these over and over (I have a surprising number memorized).  In fact, he will not sit in my lap to hear a new story unless it involves a lot of animal noises or happens to be one of the Preschool Prep Sight Words Books.  Luckily, we have found a work around.  Xander likes to be read to while having his snack or in the tub and doesn't mind new or longer books in these situations.  In fact, he gets really upset with me when I stop reading, even if it is to get him more food or wash his hair.  He does the sign for "more" and "book" and babbles emphatically at me until I continue reading.

I have an Excel file to keep track of the books we read and we were doing incredibly well at just over 100 books since January 1st.  Unfortunately, we had massive computer problems and that was the one file that was lost for good.  Luckily, it is early in the year and we can recover.  Also, I know that the pace we had set isn't a pace we will keep up.  We will still probably read just as many books, but right now all of the "favorites" and all of the books we own are getting counted.  Very soon we will have read all of our regulars, they just won't count towards our 1500 anymore.

I am excited to see how the year goes with this challenge.  In 1500 books, I am sure to find some really great books I never would have read otherwise.  We have already discovered some great series at the libraries.  On the other hand, we have already read some that I didn't think were worth our time.  I am going to have to mark the ones we really like to come back to in the future.