Middle Grade Madness! discussion
August MG Reading Challenge 2021
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August MG Reading Challenge Info
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Kadi, Creator
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Jun 29, 2021 10:26AM
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This is our second time hosting this reading challenge event and I'm super excited! It's pretty much the same as how it was last time but I've added a few extra things...
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- Each team has 1 month to try and complete as many tasks as possible.
- 1 book read can fulfil 1 task ONLY.
- 1 task is worth 1 point.
- There are 70 tasks with 5 tasks grouped into 12 different thematic categories.
- Both tasks and categories can be completed in ANY order you as a team decide on.
- There are 5 bonus points for each category completed.
- There are also 7 bonus points for each category completed by 1 team member only.
- The team with the most points at the end of the month wins!
An example of tasks from the category “Holiday”
1. Read a book with the word “Summer” in the title.
2. Read a book where the protagonist gets lost.
The Bonus Tasks:
- There are 5 bonus tasks to be released on 15 August.
- Each bonus task is worth 5 points and completing all 5 bonus tasks is worth an extra 10 points.
WHAT COUNTS AS A MIDDLE GRADE BOOK:
- Must be more than 100 pages long.
- Must be categorised as MG+ or MG on this website: https://www.arbookfind.com/default.aspx
If it says LG or UG it DOESN’T COUNT.
*For audio books*: The print edition must be more than 100 pages long.
*For graphic novels*: must be more than 150 pages long.
- Only books started on/after 1st August count!
The Teams:
- Each team has 4 team members (subject to change depending on number of sign ups)
- Each team must have 1 Captain responsible for the tracking of the team.
- Each member must create a GR shelf called “mg challenge 2021” or “middle-grade challenge 2021” or some other variation and place all books they read for the challenge in that shelf.
- Teams are allocated not chosen and depend on the amount of time people have to read.
- Please make sure you all communicate and have fun!
- If you have any questions please ask your Captain who can then put the question to me on the Captain’s Chat.
Captain's responsibilities:
- Captains are in charge of editing and maintaining their team's spreadsheet.
- Captains are in charge of organising which book is applied to which task within their team.
- Captains should make sure that the info their members give them is correct, i.e. checking their members' GR challenge shelves to see when they started and finished the book, and checking the book counts as MG.
- Captains will be in charge of relaying info regarding questions between the moderator (me) and their team members.
*A word of advice:*
There are tons of tasks to complete. At first it will be easy to read whatever MG book you like and then apply it to a task that it fulfils.
After a while, when the tasks are harder, it may be smarter to pick a book that can specifically fulfil one task.
This is just an idea... it's up to every team and their Captain to decide their strategy.
If you have any questions please ask below!! You should all receive a message by 23rd July to announce the team allocations. Please make sure you check in with your team Captain before 27th July otherwise you may be replaced or removed.
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Sign ups are officially open!
Sign up form: https://forms.gle/eib6v6BFWnA11a6ZA
Teams will be announced on 23rd July 2021!
Am I too late? I just entered in the google docs
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I just signed up for this as this seems like so much fun!! I have so many middle grade to get through! I can't wait!
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I actually reorganized my bookshelf, putting all my MG books together so it will be easy for me to find them. I can't wait to read the tasks to see what books I already have that might fit.
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I bet I won't even make a dent in it but it's got some books on there that I've had on my TBR for years so hopefully I'll finally get the chance to read some of them!
i want to participate so much but work is so busy and i know i’ll have no time to read anything because i haven’t had time to read a book in months 😭 but i loved this challenge the last time we did it
I’m feeling the same way as Jessica! I’m going back and forth on participating because I’m not sure I’ll have the time to do it right as a lot of things are going on and I just got out of a reading slump.
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We’ve got enough people now for about 3 teams so it should be a fun competition, I’m still looking for one or two more team captains though so I can start sorting out the teams.
I’ll probably sign up then ☺️ since you’re grouping people based on how much they’ll be able to read, I’ll feel less bad about not reading as much 😅 plus I’m getting out of a reading slump as well and getting back in the mood to read again, so I think this might work out well in the time I can find
I'd like to sign up, I'm not sure ill read too many books as Aug might be a busy month and I already have some non middle grade books I'd like to read soon.
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@Aurorainbookland if you’re busy then no worries! If you still wanna sign up to read a book or 2 that’s totally ok too. If you want to do what Jessica’s doing and sign up to do as much as you can, that’s alright. I’m basically forming the groups depending on how much people say they read on the sign up form so there’ll be some readers who’ll read a lot and some who’ll read less so all teams will be balanced so even if you only read a bit every book counts! I’m only planning on reading 6-7 books myself!
Kadi wrote: "@Jessica awesome! So glad you signed up even though you’re busy. Hopefully the challenge can help you out of your slump!😊@Aurorainbookland if you’re busy then no worries! If you still wanna sign ..."
Cool thanks Ill sign up for one book maybe two.
Ilsen wrote: "I’m feeling the same way as Jessica! I’m going back and forth on participating because I’m not sure I’ll have the time to do it right as a lot of things are going on and I just got out of a reading..."Oh, Ilsen, I'll miss you if you don't participate. Maybe like Kadi said, just read one book.
Kadi wrote: "@Ilsen @Jessica aah ladies I was wondering why I didn’t see your names amongst the other sign ups, you’re my regular participants! If you’re busy or in a slump I totally get it! You could always ju..."I'm not great as a leader, and my skills with spreadsheets are almost nil, but if you can't find anybody else and need another leader, I'll do it. My plan right now is to read as many books as I can squeeze into the month to decrease the number of MG books I have on my shelf. I've neglected them for a while now.
Kadi wrote: "@Lynn there's such a wide variety of tasks you'll definitely find ways to fit your books into them. I created this tbr shelf just for mg books at the start of the year: https://www.goodreads.com/re..."I checked out your list - a few books are similar, but the real similarity is the number of books - you have 74 - I have 76. I'm not sure how much of a dent I can put in that list in one month.
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@Ilsen true you will be missed. Weren't we on a team together last time? It was a lot of fun!
@Lynn aww that's very sweet of you to volunteer, thank you! I'm still sending out invites to the challenge though so I may snag some captains yet. I'll let you know if I have to take you up on that offer!
Also you win with the bigger mg tbr😂 in reality we're both losers because we probably won't lower that number by much. I think even if I dedicated the whole year to that shelf I wouldn't clear it out. There's even more mg books on my actual tbr which is so huge I didn't bother to comb through it all to find mg books to add to my mg tbr.
@Lynn @Kadi Awwww I’m flattered guys! I have decided to join like Jessica even if I read one or two because maybe I’ll be able to pick up some shorter reads and balance between my other books at home. So I’ll definitely sign up! Also yea Kadi, we were on a team together and it was super fun! Can’t wait for the prompts to show up!
Ilsen wrote: "@Lynn @Kadi Awwww I’m flattered guys! I have decided to join like Jessica even if I read one or two because maybe I’ll be able to pick up some shorter reads and balance between my other books at ho..."😃
Mg challenge 2021 shelf created
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@Rory awesome! You can sign up using the form link above now if you like😊
@Ilsen it's totally up to you but if you do sign up and read one or two books that's totally ok! I've actually been collecting some links of lists of short middle grade books to read for the challenge. It's certainly a good strategy for reading more and the books on the lists are ones I've heard of and look good too.
This is the best list I've found:
https://readingmiddlegrade.com/middle...
Also the author Vivian Vande Velde has a looot of short MG (and MG+) books. I remember in one of the past UNO challenges I read a lot of her books and they were all really great, she's just a great author.
Kadi wrote: "Hey Dee Dee, been waiting for you to show up! I have so many of the regular participants signed up now, I love it it's going to be fun!@Rory awesome! You can sign up using the form link above now..."
All signed up! So excited to read with you all next month!
@Kadi going to check that list and author out always looking for new books, yeah my list of to read on here is long but I like seeing what others have written and character names.
Kadi wrote: "Hey Dee Dee, been waiting for you to show up! I have so many of the regular participants signed up now, I love it it's going to be fun!@Rory awesome! You can sign up using the form link above now..."
^_^
Kadi wrote: "Hey Dee Dee, been waiting for you to show up! I have so many of the regular participants signed up now, I love it it's going to be fun!@Rory awesome! You can sign up using the form link above now..."
thanks for providing that list, kadi! i haven't looked through the whole thing yet, but scribd has some of them on audiobook which will help a LOT in letting me read more :)
Do I have to already have books on my T.B.R.? Do I have to update the spreadsheet myself (my iPad likely won't let me update a spreadsheet because it's an old device)?
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Also don’t worry that’s why we have Team Captains. They’ll handle all the spreadsheet stuff. If team members want to fill in the spreadsheet and their captain is ok with it then they can do that but like for you if for some reason the team member can’t then it’s the captain’s responsibility to do it.
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Kadi wrote: "Hey Dee Dee, been waiting for you to show up! I have so many of the regular participants signed up now, I love it it's going to be fun!@Rory awesome! You can sign up using the form link above now..."
I haven't loved the books I've read by, Vivian Vande Velde, but I've only read a couple and there are lots.
I'm signing up!Quick question- on the sign-up form when it asks for a middle grade book, is that a book we've already read and recommend or one we're planning to read next month?
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@Kadi That makes sense! I just wanted to make sure I understood correctly before filling it out. :)
I just signed up. this is always so fun so i’m super excited!! 😄
Officially signed up! I decided to do a bit more than 1 book but my average is 4 books in one month. So I picked a happy medium. I can’t wait to see the prompts and design my TBR
Ilsen wrote: "Officially signed up! I decided to do a bit more than 1 book but my average is 4 books in one month. So I picked a happy medium. I can’t wait to see the prompts and design my TBR"😄
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@Grace @Ilsen awesome! This means we have enough people for 4 teams of 5 OR 5 teams of 4. Considering we only have 4 team captains (if Lynn is still kindly volunteering to be one) it’ll probably end up being 4 teams of 5.
Last time we had teams of 5 as well and 2 of the teams finished the tasks before the month even ended (embarrassing planning on my part😂🤦🏻♀️) so I may add more tasks now in anticipation of that happening again. The categories this year are only made up of 5 tasks each (compared to last time where they were made up of 7 tasks each) so it’s easier to create new tasks and categories now anyway.
Kadi wrote: "@Tiffany no problemo😊@Grace @Ilsen awesome! This means we have enough people for 4 teams of 5 OR 5 teams of 4. Considering we only have 4 team captains (if Lynn is still kindly volunteering to be ..."
Yay! Its a party!
Kadi wrote: "@Tiffany no problemo😊@Grace @Ilsen awesome! This means we have enough people for 4 teams of 5 OR 5 teams of 4. Considering we only have 4 team captains (if Lynn is still kindly volunteering to be ..."
If you need me, I will be available.
What if I can't find a book on AR Bookfinder? "Sara and the search for normal" is a quite recent M.G./Y.A. novel, published in June 2020. Written by Wesley King, this book is the prequel to OCDaniel and I reckon it will be somewhat popular soon, due to the current popularity of OCDaniel.I'm lining up which books I can read now and which I should defer for a couple of weeks in case a certain book fits a challenge really well, so I hope someone can answer soon. Thank you in advance!
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@Abigael great question! With newly published books or ARCs (advanced reader copies) they won't be on the AR Bookfinder website so as long as they're listed as middle grade on their Goodreads page or Netgalley/Edelweiss Plus page or the publisher's website then they're fine to read for the challenge.
With that book—which sounds really interesting by the way, I might check out the first book in the series—it's a little questionable if it's MG or YA just judging by the Goodreads page for it but the publisher's website (https://www.simonandschuster.com/book...) has it down as grades 3-7 so its definitely middle grade and you can read it for the challenge if it fits a task!
hi kadi! I'm kinda new to readathons and everything. I just started enjoying books again and decided to join book clubs and have no idea what to do. do u mind explaining? also I probably don't have any books for readathons so yeah but I have my own middle grade books. if u mind explaining these book club activi5es it would be great! thx kadi
Kadi wrote: "@Lynn you're a lifesaver! I've got the teams all ready and I'll be announcing them on the 23rd.@Abigael great question! With newly published books or ARCs (advanced reader copies) they won't be o..."
Well, I'll do my best, but don't be surprised if I have to ask for technical help.
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And then keep an eye out for the messages I send, they'll usually let you know what events are coming up so you can check them out and prepare for them beforehand, like borrowing books from your library etc.
@Lynn no worries. The spreadsheet is really simple! It's literally like all you do is put the book name, read dates, and reason for each task and that's it. Points auto-calculate thanks to the coding I've added so there's no need to touch any of that. You'll see soon once I share the spreadsheet with everyone, but of course any questions you have or help you need I'll be here to help you😊
