Friday, April 17, 2009

Dewey's Read-a-Thon

I'm happy to say The Girl and I will be participating in the 24 Hour Read-a-Thon, which begins tomorrow at 8 a.m. in my neck of the woods. I don't think I'll make the whole 24 hours, as we have church on Sunday morning, but we'll put in our best effort for however many hours we spend reading. The Girl is excited to be staying up past her bedtime tomorrow night, and to be honest, she'll probably hang on longer than her old mother. I figure if she's going to stay up late, I'd rather have her reading. There are so many worse things she could be doing, right?

So the first thing she did was pull out a bunch of books for the Read-a-Thon. She's got a stack of Dr. Seuss and easy Sponge Bob books in case she needs a break. I think she pulled out every chapter book she owns, but I told her she needed to narrow down the list a bit. So here are the ones she's serious about, though I'm not sure how many she'll get through:

Ivy & Bean Break the Fossil Record by Annie Barrows and Sophie Blackall

Ivy & Bean and the Ghost That Had to Go by Annie Barrows and Sophie Blackall

The Tiara Club at Silver Towers: Princess Katie and the Mixed-Up Potion by Vivian French

iCarly: iWanna Stay! by Laurie McElroy

Ready, Freddy!: Help! A Vampire's Coming by Abby Klein

Dinosaur Cove: Attack of the Tyrannosaurus by Rex Stone

The Puppy Place: Patches by Ellen Miles

The Puppy Place: Scout by Ellen Miles

Mercer Mayer's Critters of the Night: Werewolves for Lunch by Erica Farber and J.R. Sansevere

We also have a list of books that we plan to read together when we feel the need for a change in pace:

Coraline by Neil Gaiman (We're almost done with this book, and we thought the Read-a-Thon was the perfect excuse to finish it!)

Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story by Linda Thieman

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo

And last but not least, here are the books I pulled off the shelf for myself. I figured I could use the Read-a-Thon to concentrate on the WWII Reading Challenge:

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Assignment: Rescue
by Varian Fry

Memory by Philippe Grimbert

The Seventh Well by Fred Wander

A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy by Thomas Buergenthal

Children of the Flames: Dr. Joseph Mengele and the Untold Stories of the Twins of Auschwitz by Lucette Matalon Lagnado and Sheila Cohn Dekel

Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay

The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean

And if I need something non-WWII, I pulled out these:

The 8th Confession by James Patterson

That Went Well by Terrell Harris Dougan

I don't expect to finish all of these, but I like to keep my options open. I'm starting with Guernsey for sure, but I'm going with the flow after that.

Whether or not we update during the challenge will depend on how we feel. Same thing for the mini-challenges. We're just going to play everything by ear. We've got some snacks ready and some green tea iced tea, and we're ready for a Wii Fit break whenever we need to get up and do something non-book-related. I think I'm going to do my laundry while I read, too, which I normally do on Sunday, but I think I'm going to need most of Sunday for sleep. Wish us luck!

(Oh, and thanks to my good buddy Janel and her hubby, we're back online at home. Thank you both so much!)

17 comments:

Vasilly said...

You have a great lists of books. It's nice to hear that your little one is joining you. Good luck tomorrow!

Mari said...

You both have a great selection of books. Have fun and good luck!

Kim said...

Great books and great fun to have you little girl reading along with you! My 13 year old son is reading with me and I think he is more excited about this than I am!
Have fun...
*smiles*
Kim

Book Lover Lisa said...

Love the idea to have your daughter participate. I will have to tell my kids tomorrow, and let them join in with me. Happy reading.

Laura said...

You have some great books there--good luck tomorrow!

Toni said...

Awesome list and I know "the girl" is going to be in seventh heaven. I look forward to hearing all about it. I can't do it this year but I will be looking in on everyone.

Linda Thieman said...

Oh, gee, I'm so excited to hear that you and your daughter are going to read Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story! Can't wait to hear how it goes. Good luck with the read-a-thon!

Linda Thieman, author
Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story
Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish
http://www.katieandkimbleblog.com

Meghan said...

Oh, it's so wonderful that The Girl is reading along with you! I know I'd have loved doing something like this with my mom when I was her age but obviously the idea never occurred to either of us. Looking forward to seeing how you both do. Good luck!

Ana S. said...

Good luck, Anna & Girl! Have a wonderful time :)

Unknown said...

That's so awesome that your girl will be staying up with you. Maybe I'll convince my daughter to do it in October. I am such a sleepy head though that I don't think I ever would do it. You have great books on your list, 'Lucky Child' among them. That one is really an awesome memoir, I loved it.

Trish @ Love, Laughter, Insanity said...

Woohoo! I plan on reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society also. How fun that The Girl will be reading with you!

Anna said...

Thanks, everyone! We're starting right now!!

Sandy Nawrot said...

Go, go, go! I wish I were doing this, but it just didn't work out. Too much stuff going on. What a great idea, to involve The Girl! And very apt to start with Guernsey - you couldn't pick a better book!

bermudaonion said...

What a wonderful thing for you two to do together! Good luck to both of you!

Anna said...

Thanks Sandy and Kathy! We just finished Coraline, which we'd started some time ago. We figured finishing a book early on would give us a boost. Now she's reading a Scooby Doo book, and I'm going to start Guernsey in a sec.

Thanks everyone for your encouragement.

tanabata said...

I think it's great that you're reading together! Lots of great books to choose from. Happy reading to both of you!

Anna said...

Thanks, Tanabata! I hope you have a good time, too.