Sunday, April 11, 2010

Read-a-Thon Wrap-Up

Well, Dewey's Read-a-Thon ended hours ago, and The Girl and I are finally among the living.  We left Serena's house around Hour 14 and conked out between Hour 16 and 17, just before 1 a.m. in our neck of the woods.  We actually spent much of the time reading, with only an hour spent at the library sale and at store to buy meals and snacks, and I spent about 2 hours total online while The Girl napped for an equal amount of time.  We probably chatted a lot more than we would have if we didn't hang out with Serena and her hubby, but I think it creates a more energetic, festive atmosphere.  Even though I can't fully concentrate when video games are being played and movies are being watched, I think I'd probably sleep for most of the event if I was reading in complete silence.

You're probably curious about our reading totals for the Read-a-Thon, and while we wish we would have accomplished more, we're pretty happy with our numbers.  After all, we set out to spend a day with books and have fun, and we certainly met those goals.

The Girl (age 9) would like me to tell you that she actually stayed up 30 minutes more than I did.  She's definitely a night owl.  She completed one book, Princess Katie and the Mixed-Up Potion (Tiara Club at Silver Towers, Book 8) by Vivian French, and she read about 40 pages of Bone: The Great Cow Race by Jeff Smith.

Together, we read about 20 pages in a children's picture history book about the Vietnam War, The Fall of Saigon: The End of the Vietnam War by Michael V. Uschan, which is one of her selections for the Vietnam War Reading Challenge.

I completed one book that I started a couple of days before the Read-a-Thon, Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart by Beth Patillo, amounting to about 125 pages read.  I read another 30 pages in My Enemy's Cradle by Sara Young, and 35 pages of a poetry book, Dien Cai Dau by Yusef Komunyakaa.  I woke up about 10 minutes after the Read-a-Thon ended and finished the Komunyakaa book.

We had a wonderful time and appreciate each and every one of you who stopped by and left a comment on our Read-a-Thon posts to cheer us on.  Thanks!  We certainly will be signing up for the next Read-a-Thon, and The Girl and I might even cheer (officially) for a bit.

I'm going to go back to dozing off on the couch and doing the laundry.  I'll check out everyone's Read-a-Thon wrap-up posts when I've recovered.

Disclosure: I am an Amazon affiliate.



and



© 2010, Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not copy or reproduce content without permission.

23 comments:

Lenore Appelhans said...

Looks like a successful readathon for you both!

Staci said...

sounds like everyone had a great time!! I love that you shared this with the family!!

Blodeuedd said...

One fun readathon it seems :D

Sullivan McPig said...

Sounds like it was a success.
I might try to participate next time too.

bermudaonion said...

I think spending the read-a-thon with other readers is keeping in the spirit of the day - it's a celebration of reading! I'm sure The Girl could stay up way later than me too!

Serena said...

I think you gals did much better than I did. I didn't finish one book...and I'm still not done. LOL

I hope you have a great Sunday. Cheering was great fun!

Brittanie said...

I am doing laundry right now too. :)

Amanda said...

Hi! I just want to say thanks for cheering for me during the readathon!

Sandy Nawrot said...

Thanks to you and The Girl, you inspired the Nawrots to do the read-a-thon family style. They loved it, and I'm so proud of them. I think that even if we have sporting events next time, they will still want to do it. Personally, I am fried. I don't want to read anything right now!

Suko said...

What a great experience, made even better because you shared it with your daughter. The Girl is quite a reader, just like her mom. :)

Stacy M.S. said...

Congrats on the thon. I totally missed out on it but hope I can catch next years. :)

Anonymous said...

How do you like My Enemy's Cradle so far? That was one of my favorite reads of last year. Congrats on your readathon success. It sounds like you had fun.

Stephanie said...

Sounds to me like you rocked that readathon! :-) I love the fact that the Girl might want to cheer next year.

Bybee said...

You both did a wonderful job. The Girl had some great ideas in the mid-event survey, especially the "make a comic" challenge idea.

Unknown said...

Yeah Anna! Great job - tired but happy.

Kristen said...

I think I'd love to do the Read-a-thon with company. I've never yet managed to pull an all-nighter for anything so I'd have to have loads of encouragement. :-)

Iliana said...

Sounds like you guys had a great time! Yay!

Kim (Sophisticated Dorkiness) said...

Sounds like a really fun day for everyone! If I get to do the next Read-a-Thon I hope I can find other people to do with -- I love the idea of a festive atmosphere for reading.

Lisa said...

I think that great thing is that you had a wonderful time reading together! I'd call that a successful readathon.

Anonymous said...

I'm glad you both had such a great read-a-thon!

Anna said...

Thank you all so much! We had a really great time. I'm still exhausted though and hope to do more napping this weekend!

Kdassaro: I finished My Enemy's Cradle yesterday. Loved it! I'll be posting my review soon.

Alice said...

Hi Anna, I'm glad all of you had so much fun finishing the read-a-thon!

Anna said...

Thanks, Alice!