Michelle's Empty Nest’s
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(group member since Oct 31, 2021)
Michelle's Empty Nest’s
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from the Hooked on Books group.
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Ridiculously Random Prompt #8: Apple Pie
Apple Pie isn't actually American at all.
The next time you call something "as American as apple pie," you might want to consider the fact that neither apple pies nor apples originally came from America. Apples are in fact native to Asia, and the first recorded recipe for apple pie was actually written in England.
Complete ONE of the following tasks:
🥧 1. Read a book set in America, England, or Asia.
🥧 2. Read a book that includes a recipe.
🥧 3. Read a book with a cliché in the text.
🥧 4. Read a book with an apple or other fruit on the cover.
Great job!
All threads have been created to this point. Please make sure you can access your spreadsheet.
I Spy! Reading Challenge
A Create-Your-Own, Individual Game
Grab Your Spy Glass on June 1, 2025
Come play HOB's version of I Spy! You will have two years to complete the challenge. The best part? You'll be creating your own tasks to go along with the items in the images! There are SO MANY ways to make your books fit. You are only limited by your own creativity.
Here is just a small sampling of tasks that could work for the image above. {Please note: images are much larger and clearer on the spreadsheet.}
SOME EXAMPLES
I SPY = all letters of I SPY in title
telephone = someone talks on the phone
glove = set in a cold climate
ants = multiples of something on cover
word red = red cover
school bus = MC is a student or a teacher
cat = character has a cat
chicken = set on a farm
tennis racket = tagged SPORTS
rocket = set in space
books = MPG Books About Books
letter T = title or author starts with T
boombox = character listens to music
cheeseburger = character eats a meal
umbrella = rains in the story
coffee mug = character has a drink
firetruck = some type of fire in story
ship = character travels
hot air balloon = character flies; physically or in an airplane
beach pail = character goes to a beach or set at the beach
horse = character rides a horse
chair = furniture on cover
shopping cart = character buys something
SpongeBob = contains author's first & last initials
Shoe = word SHOE(S) found in text
*IF there were numbers = part of page count or publication date
AND ON AND ON!!!
I will create a thread for you to use in any way that makes sense to you, and it will have a link to your spreadsheet. HOWEVER, all official tracking and checking in will be done via the simple, individual spreadsheet and the Check-In Thread. Please don't be intimidated by the use of the spreadsheet. I will be glad to help you figure it out in the beginning.
There will be 20 images to work with and you will create three tasks/read three books for each image. You can jump around and go in any order you wish. You can complete them all, or just get to as many as possible over the course of the two years. It's all pretty laid back!
Once you have completed all three books per image, post a link to that specific tab on the spreadsheet in the I Found It! Completion Thread.
If you have any questions, please post them in the What am I Looking For? Q&A Thread.
Challenge Rules:
📘 Standard Rules Apply
📘 I will create an individual thread for you prior to the start date.
📘 You may begin reading your books and creating your tasks on June 1, 2025.
Awesome!Love that skateboard task!
Ridiculously Random Prompt #26: Baby Puffins
A baby puffin is called a "puffling."
To feed its chick, a puffin parent will carry around 10 fish in its beak at one time, but the biggest recorded haul is a whopping 62 fish, according to Audubon Project Puffin.
Complete ONE of the following tasks:
🐠 1. Read a book with a bird on the cover.
🐠 2. Read a book where the MC is a parent.
🐠 3. Read a book with a 6 and a 2 in the page count.
🐠 4. Read a book with all the letters of PUFFIN found in the title/subtitle.
Ridiculously Random Prompt #26: Baby PuffinsA baby puffin is called a "puffling."
To feed its chick, a puffin parent will carry around 10 fish in its beak at one time, but the biggest recorded haul is a whopping 62 fish, according to Audubon Project Puffin.
Complete ONE of the following tasks:
🐠 1. Read a book with a bird on the cover.
🐠 2. Read a book where the MC is a parent.
🐠 3. Read a book with a 6 and a 2 in the page count.
🐠 4. Read a book with all the letters of PUFFIN found in the title/subtitle.
Ridiculously Random Prompt #26: Baby PuffinsA baby puffin is called a "puffling."
To feed its chick, a puffin parent will carry around 10 fish in its beak at one time, but the biggest recorded haul is a whopping 62 fish, according to Audubon Project Puffin.
Complete ONE of the following tasks:
🐠 1. Read a book with a bird on the cover.
🐠 2. Read a book where the MC is a parent.
🐠 3. Read a book with a 6 and a 2 in the page count.
🐠 4. Read a book with all the letters of PUFFIN found in the title/subtitle.
Great tasks!
Prompt Name / #: General Fiction #2
The Twelve Topsy-Turvy, Very Messy Days of Christmas
Published: September 2022
Move over, Dickens—America’s favorite storyteller has written a modern Christmas story for the ages.
Every year at Christmastime, Will and Ella Sullivan, and their father, Henry, come to a family agreement: Christmas is a holiday for other people.
At their brownstone in Harlem, stockings go unstuffed, tinsel unstrewn, gifts unbought, mistletoe unhung, chestnuts unroasted, carols unplayed, cookies uncooked, a tree un-visible, and guests uninvited.
Until guests start arriving anyway. In pairs and sixes, in sevens and tens—they keep coming. And they stay. For twelve long, hard, topsy-turvy, very messy days. That’s when the Sullivans discover that those moments in life that defy hope, expectation, or even imagination, might be the best gifts of all.
Complete ONE of the following:
1. Read a book tagged FAMILY any number of times.
2. Read a book with all the letters of HARLEM in the title.
3. Read a book where guests arrive at someone's home.
4. Read any James Patterson novel.
Prompt Name / #: Thrillers #55
2 Sisters Detective Agency
Published: September 2021
A detective duo of sisters finds themselves in the crosshairs of a dangerous and lawless group. Attorney Rhonda Bird returns home after a long estrangement when she learns her father has died. There she makes two important discoveries: her father stopped being an accountant and had opened up a private detective agency, and she has a teenage half sister named Baby. Baby brings in a client to the detective agency, a young man who claims he was abducted. During the course of the investigation, Rhonda and Baby become entangled in a dangerous case involving a group of overprivileged young adults who break laws for fun, their psychopath ringleader, and an ex-assassin victim who decides to hunt them down for revenge.
Complete ONE of the following:
1. Read a book that you also used for one of Namita's challenges.
2. Read a book with two people on the cover.
3. Read a book where a parent dies.
4. Read any James Patterson novel.
Ridiculously Random Prompt #49: Baby Sea Otters
Baby sea otters can't swim right away.
Their moms will wrap them in pieces of kelp while they hunt until the buoyant pups learn how to paddle around on their own. A raft of otters will also hold hands while they sleep so they don't drift apart!
Complete ONE of the following tasks:
🦦 1. Read a book where someone swims.
🦦 2. Read a book with people holding hands on the cover.
🦦 3. Read a book with the word SLEEP found in the text.
🦦 4. Read a book MC's first initial is found in BUOYANT.
Ridiculously Random Prompt #54: Ultimate Taser Ball
Ultimate Taser Ball is a kind of extreme and crazy sport that not many would have heard of or believe that it is true. It involves players carrying a real taser gun and using it on opponents to gain possession of the ball. If you are thinking, who would have come up with such an idea, the honors go to three California natives: Leif Kellenberger, Eric Prum, and Erik Wunsch.
The game is played on a 200 x 85 feet field. The ball used is a large 24 inch diameter inflated ball. The objective of the sport is to successfully carry the ball onto the opponents goalpost without getting tased en-route.
Rather than allowing players to go wild with their stun guns, the game fortunately has a rule that only players that have possession of the ball can be tased. The stun guns used emit a maximum of five milliamps, enough to cause muscle spasms to give up the ball, but well under the 1 amp lethal dose, and hence causes no permanent damage.
It's not hard to imagine that the sport was not well received. People would rather play than get tased and fall on their face. The founders, however, seem to be working towards getting a minor league going for the sport.
Complete ONE of the following tasks:
🔫 1. Read a book with a character who is in law enforcement.
🔫 2. Read a book where the title ENDS with a letter in EXTREME.
🔫 3. Read a book with a plot that seems too crazy to be true.
🔫 4. Read a book where the MC's first name ENDS with a letter in LETHAL.
Fantastic!
Ridiculously Random Prompt #57: Underwater Hockey
Underwater Hockey, also known as ‘Octopush,' is essentially a game of hockey at the bottom of a swimming pool.
The aim of the game is to push the puck into the opposing team’s goal using a small pusher. The game involves 2 teams of up to 10 players with players using diving masks, fins, and snorkel gear.
Complete ONE of the following tasks:
🏊🏻♀️ 1. Read a book with a body of water on the cover.
🏊🏻♀️ 2. Read a book with between 2 and 20 MAJOR characters.
🏊🏻♀️ 3. Read a book with all the letters of HOCKEY found in the title.
🏊🏻♀️ 4. Read a book with the words SMALL and PUSH found in the text.
Nice work!
Prompt Name / #: Romances #2
Sam's Letters to Jennifer
Published: January 1991
Grief-stricken by a recent tragedy, Jennifer returns to the resort village where she grew up to help her beloved grandmother. There, Jennifer will discover new meaning in life and experience not one, but two of the most amazing love stories ever.
Complete ONE of the following:
1. Read a book tagged DRAMA any number of times.
2. Read a book where a character has experienced tragedy.
3. Read a book originally published in the 1990s.
4. Read any James Patterson novel.
Prompt Name / #: Thrillers #46
1st Case
Published: July 2020
A computer genius pulls off her greatest hack yet -- and her skill might just get her killed.
Angela Hoot's government career begins with an ending. Her unorthodox programming skills get her kicked out of MIT's graduate school and into the Bureau's cyber-forensics unit.
A messaging app with sophisticated tracking capabilities surfaces. Its beta users, all young women, are only identified as they turn up dead in their bedrooms. As Angela races to crack the killer's digital code, their technical rivalry escalates. She must deny the killer access to her personal life, or risk losing her life to the underbelly of the Internet.
Complete ONE of the following:
1. Read a book where the MC works with computers in some way.
2. Read a book with the word INTERNET found in the text.
3. Read a book with a mostly black and white cover. {Your discretion.}
4. Read any James Patterson novel.
Ridiculously Random Prompt #3: Axe Throwing
Popular at lumberjack competitions, Axe Throwing is a sport in which players throw an axe at a target, attempting to reach the bulls-eye.
On the target, the outside ring is worth 1 point, the second ring is worth 2 points, and so on with the bulls-eye worth 5 points. In a game, each player is allowed 5 throws with a maximum of 25 points possible.
Complete ONE of the following tasks:
🪓 1. Read a book with all the letters of AXE in the title.
🪓 2. Read a book with a 25 intact in the page count or publication date.
🪓 3. Read a book a round object, like a target, on the cover.
🪓 4. Read a book where the MC's first initial is found in LUMBERJACK.
