Middle Grade Madness! discussion
August MG Reading Challenge 2022
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Ideas, Improvements and Suggestions
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Kadi, Creator
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Aug 31, 2022 11:41AM
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- Make the tasks less specific! They’re too hard like that. Make them more vague and easier (but not too much) and then make bonus tasks more specific.
- Make teams bigger. Maybe 6 or 7 team members as not everyone will read loads.
Ideas for next year:
- Change page points to award it according to each 50 pages.
- Each category has a “golden task” which is harder than the others in the category and is worth 3 points instead of 1?
- Bonus points for categories completed by 3 people?
- Incorporate graphic novels, manga, and indie books more?
I'd like more time to plan books. Some books I planned on had too many library holds to arrive in time, so getting those requested earlier would help.I like the 50-page increment idea. I had a book that was 399 pages! Stuck at 3 points.
Mod
I hear about this every year and I know it's an obstacle for everyone so maybe I can find a solution to it. I was thinking what if I shared some tasks early before the challenge starts and some when the challenge starts. Like I share the first 5 categories about a week before the challenge starts. And I share the rest of the 15 categories once the challenge starts.
Then maybe the first 5 categories should be worth less points than the other 15 categories. Like this:
1st 5 categories = 5 bonus points for being completed
Rest of 15 categories = 10 bonus points for being completed
What do you think? Or should I share 10 random categories before the challenge starts and the other 10 once it starts? (The less points for the ones shared early idea will still apply)
Mod
I came across this problem too! Not 399 exactly, that's so painfully close. I had a book that was 192 and only got 1 point and was sad about that.
Now I just have to figure out how to do the coding for this!
For the page points I was actually going to suggest a little bit different approach. Since the minimum length requirement is 100 pages, I think the bonus page points should start higher than that. What I was thinking is that books between 150-249 pages long receive 1 page point, 250-349 page books receive 2 points, 350-449 pages earn 3 points, and so on. But I also like the 50 page increment idea, so I'd be happy with whichever way you decide to do it.I agree larger teams would work better as long as we have enough people participating to do so.
I do think some of the tasks were too specific and difficult. I don't want them all to be super easy! It is a reading challenge after all! But there were quite a lot that were nearly impossible to choose a book for and know that the book would complete the task without having read it first.
Looking at the score sheet, it looks like there are 3 tasks that nobody completed: 82, 87, and 91. I actually know of several books that would fit 91, but it's still pretty specific. I looked and looked and couldn't find any books that would even fit 87. The handful of middle grade books I know of with a hanukiyah on the cover are too short other than one that I think is out of print because I couldn't find a copy anywhere. If anybody knows of one that's more readily available, I'd love to hear it.
As far as releasing any tasks or categories ahead of time, what's your reasoning behind not sharing them early? Genuinely just curious what your thinking is on that. I'm not sure why it would be a problem to reveal the entire spreadsheet maybe 2-3 days early or so, just enough time to give people a chance to start looking for books on their shelves or to place library holds. If you really think it wouldn't work to share them all early, what about the idea for "golden tasks" that you mentioned? Maybe reveal the one toughest task from each category a week early but not have those tasks be worth additional points then?
Another thing I think would be helpful is to have an extra page in each team's document for recommendations. So it would list all the tasks and categories but then have blank spaces for team members to fill in books they know fit that task. I hope that makes sense? It could look similar to the task guidance page except instead of the guidance column, it would have space for book recommendations.
Mod
150 = 1 point
200 = 2 point. Which means that people have to read more than 150 pages to get a page point. I don’t want it to be too strict, if that’s kind of reasonable then it’s a possibility of what we can do.
I like how this idea has evolved!
Figuring out the team size is so hard. In 2019 we had teams with 6 people and they read so much they finished all the tasks before we were even halfway through the month. I think it scarred me😂 I was really shocked by that which is why we now have 100 tasks right out the bat.
But this year almost every team had one or two people that either didn’t read anything or only read a bit so even though we had 5 people in a team it was really more like 3 or 4 people teams. I wish so badly that I knew it’d be like that because I would’ve taken one of the teams and redistributed their members to the other teams instead. Anyway we still had fun and we can’t change what happened, only use it to inform what happens next year so the plan is definitely bigger teams.
I can actually think of 1 book each for 82 and 91 and I managed to find 1 for 87. We’ve discussed the Hanukkiah books we found here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... if you’re interested in seeing them.
To be honest, my reluctance to reveal tasks early is because I feel like part of the fun of the challenge is like pulling back the curtain on the first day and seeing what challenges we have and then quickly scrambling to align what books you already have to the tasks and getting more books for you to read after ready. Obviously that doesn’t really work when the tasks are super hard and specific like I made them this year because the tasks are rigid and then you have to go out and look for particular books. That’s something I’ll try not to do next year.
But I feel my resolve loosening a bit on this which is why I think a compromise of revealing some but not all tasks is a good idea. Because I feel like this way it’s more considerate of people who have to wait for library loans and aren’t able to access books immediately which is probably the majority of participants, and still manages to retain some of the excitement and surprise of revealing what the rest of the tasks are when the challenge starts. And still keep that teamwork that I really love to see where we give each other recommendations for books we’d never even consider reading before.
If I do end up going with revealing some of the categories early I may scrap the golden tasks idea and just have the tasks revealed early be worth less points. It’s less complicated and I do tend to make things complicated!
As for the recommendations page, I totally LOVE that idea! I will absolutely implement that, it’s such a great idea! The moment you said it I could already picture it before I read your suggestion of what it could look like and the image in my mind was exactly the same as your suggestion haha—great minds think alike!
I did find a book for 91 but didn't get that far. Someone found me a book for 82 but my library didn't have it.I like the Recommendations idea because we were kind of doing that anyway by writing in books with a question mark. And last year we were worried about other teams spying on our thread for the harder books, lol.
One of my other groups does a yearly challenge (two teams). Most of the prompts have two or three related options, like "a detective character or a magnifying glass on the cover." I don't know if that would work here.
Our team found books for 82, 87, & 91. We didn't get to 91 because of time constraints. I was personally avoiding 82 because ALL of the books I found on my library app were too adventurous for me & everyone else was too busy to take it. We also found a few books for 87 but none of us were able to access them. I agree about maybe releasing some early but I also have started to anticipate August 1st & getting The List.
I was disappointed that our team was down 2 people. I'm certain we would have been closer to finishing all the tasks if we had at least 4 people (I think we got to 87 or 90, approximately?) I wonder if there's a way of getting confirmation the day before & maybe during the Challenge so we can adjust somehow if necessary? I'm also very concerned what happened to all these people: are they okay (as in healthy & safe)? Why did they disappear before the Challenge or drop out early?
I LOVE MG challenge! I'm so thankful for Kadi making it happen every year & giving some predictability even in the unpredictable (we always know when it's happening, what kinds of books will count, whose running it, & that it's going to be fun & challenging). I learn stuff about myself & how to acheive reading goals every year I do this & it's a great experience!
For me, the worst part is when it's over! Does anyone know of any other awesome read-athons? (Especially middle grade, because even though I'm an adult, I read almost exclusively middle grade fiction.)
It was so much fun this year and last year reading some more middle grade, this challenege/month is like the only time I ever read much middle grade.My only things I noticed that I think would be fun to have/impliment:
I like the idea someone had of the recommendations page because even though this is a challenege, only asking for ideas in your own team and not all the teams made me kinda sad because what if your team is unable to think of types of books becauses of tastes/ types of books can find or look up while another team is able to find books for those tasks but can't technically "Share" reccomendations.
Hence why having a chat section just for reccomendations for prompts or just ideas might help.
I did like some of these hard ones this year that made me think of books and like does this really fit it, but I would say try to mix in some from like past times this challenge has been done? Mix of easy and hard? We still all accomplised alot among the teams but some at the bottom were lacking when I would scroll through the score board. (Lacking as in near the end on most teams the bottom 3 categories were barely read).
So overall a mix, or maybe release some, have bonus tasks, and maybe release some extra (Since there is so many) as like end of year thing,
I did like adding the page count but I do agree where some books were so close to the cut off, but also it some times dosen't help that middle grade tend to be mainly smaller (Comapred to YA and adult) in page length. Don't get me wrong their is some chunkers but majority aren't from what I have seen.
If doing bigger teams then I see that as helping but also the need to add more tasks because of how quickly (depending on reading amount) would fill up the current.
This is all I can think of for now, and Kadi I need to figure out how you do the coding because the way your spreedsheet is laid out has given me ideas for my own readathon on how to make it flow for prompts so thank you! I can't wait to participate next time!
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Also totally coincidental but both of those options you named have been tasks in the past😂
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But across teams could work too. It’d be anonymous so technically not like cheating by helping another team and people could add recs if they wanted or not add recs and it’d be fair because everyone would be able to view it.
So the question is: would you want a separate spreadsheet to share recommendations across teams AND a recommendations page on each team’s spreadsheet that only the team can access? Or just the first option or just the second option?
I’m loving everyone’s feedback and thoughts. It’s actually so helpful because I can’t always come up with different ideas like we can collectively.
Mod
It’s a shame about the people who signed up and then didn’t really participate. Your team still managed to do amazing without them! But it’s true every team was effected by it. Some people genuinely were sick and unable to participate even though they wanted to. Some people found they had too much work and had overcommitted themselves. Some people just never showed up. You’re right though there should be a better way to check people are actually going to take part. Reading a little is totally fine! But not participating at all is not.
What I’ll try to do next year is push everything up on the calendar to happen earlier. There should be more time for people to confirm they’re going to actively participate before the teams are announced. Because I don’t want to move people from teams after they’re announced. Imagine you’ve met all your fellow team members and then I barge in and break up the gang and separate you all into different teams😂 it’s unprofessional and disorganised so I definitely don’t want to do that.
I’ll also make the teams bigger with like 7 members each. That way if there’s 1 or 2 less active members or ones that disappear you’re less likely to be effected as a team. Plus bigger teams will be more fun! I felt like there were less people to bounce off of and discuss with in each team.
Aaw I’m so happy you like the challenge! For all the mistakes I make with it I really appreciate how much everyone is patient with me and still enjoys it!
I’m always sad when it’s over too. There are more books I wanted to read! And now I provably won’t read them because I don’t have that same motivation.
If you’re looking for readathons we’ve still got them here on the group. We’re doing a sci-fi themed one this month: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... and we’ll have our annual horror themed one next month.
If you’re looking for more team-based challenges I can only think of the UNO challenge which loosely inspired this challenge. It runs from February to April (3 months) but it’s not MG only, it’s open to all demographics. The concept is way more creative than this challenge😂 and it’s huge! Looots of people take part, I haven’t done it for 4 years now but I’m hoping to do it next year. Here’s this year’s page if you want to read more about it: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...
I don't have any suggestions. I think you did a fabulous job, @Kadi. It takes a lot of thinking, planning and organizing to get us going! This was my first year and I so enjoyed the challenge! I liked everything about it and will look forward to participating next year. Since MG horror is one of my favorites, I will look forward to October!
I was thinking sharing only recommendations within a team, but there could be an option for sharing across the board for the more charitable-minded.There's also always going to be some random elements, like people getting sick unexpectedly. Even with the same conditions, you could have a year where 100 tasks are all done early and another where not all get done.
Releasing The List five or so days early would still be a big event, and people could confirm that they'll be able to do it. It does take some time to research for the harder tasks.
This is the challenge my sci fi/fantasy group does. The tasks usually have an OR option in them.
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Also, thanks to Kadi for running it. It obviously was a lot of work, and programming all the math was impressive. Big thanks.
Mod
My only things I noticed that I think would be..."
I'm really sorry about the hardness of the tasks. That's my number one thing to fix for next year. It's really ironic that the reason they're so specific is that I wanted them to be very unique so I didn't look at the 2021 tasks at all because I didn't want to subconsciously copy them. Anyway, in my effort to be creative I gave myself no guidance on how to set up the tasks and then we ended up with this.
A lot of the weird wording for the tasks has got to go. My points of improvement for them for next year is:
1. Get rid of the protagonist/main character specification. It's too specific. Everything will just say character instead, and that way any character fits it.
2. More than/at least/exact number tasks are a complete no. I seemed to use the wording interchangeably and it meant every task with numbered items had to be clarified. Next year any task with numbered items will mean "at least" but won't say that. One meaning for them all should clear up confusion.
Also what you say about middle grade books being shorter makes me feel as though page points shouldn't start being awarded from after 100 pages. I think I'll end up keeping it the same way as it is this year but award by 50 page increments instead of 100.
I don't mind being flippant with page points because I feel like it acts as motivation and adds some really great variation and unpredictability between teams.
Thanks for some great points Aeriell!
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Thanks so much Georgann! It definitely was a good month's worth of work that I managed to stretch out into 3 months😂
But I really couldn't have done it without all of you. You were such great participants so thank you to you too for taking part!
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There's also always going to be some random ele..."
That's so true. Like no matter how much I plan something always inevitably goes wrong. It's never completely smooth sailing but that's just part and parcel of hosting and I enjoy that aspect too. Keeps you on your toes!
I just skim read through that challenge you linked but wow it seems so cool! I'm going to have to read through it in more detail.
Audrey wrote: "Also, thanks to Kadi for running it. It obviously was a lot of work, and programming all the math was impressive. Big thanks."
Aaw no thank you! You were one of the first people on the group and you've always participated in events so I feel really lucky to have managed to keep you around for so long😂 thanks so much for your continued support and participation!
Hey Kadi,Don't overhaul it TOO too much - it was really fun as it was! :D
Just a couple of things I wondered about - is there a separate points award to the team who reads the largest number of books? Because if so, then fulfilling specific tasks doesn't have to be as daunting. On the otherhand, if a team is under-powered (because some members aren't pulling their weight), specific tasks completed could make up for an overall volume deficit. I don't know if I've explained that well enough, and perhaps you already had such a system in place ("bonus points to the team with the most overall books read").
Re: page counts - you could just sum up total pages read by team at the end, right? Give points based on that instead? That might simplify things for you. Can additionally give a 'thicc book bonus' for books over a certain number of pages (maybe over 300 pages for an MG book?) to offset these?
Maybe it's just my psychology, but I'd love to see a running display of overall standings summarized on the GoogleSheet (maybe just by team, total points), if that's possible (I don't even know if that's feasible)! OR weekly standing messages - anything to motivate!
It would also be cool to have a "Most Valuable Player" award (in the form of bonus points) for having the participant who read the largest number of books, and possibly even a second MVP award for the participant having brought in the most points individually. I don't know if that's easy to do (probably not!), but then it would reward your super participants who might be out of the running otherwise if they get a dud team. :) Then at least the super achievers have something to focus on, if the team competition is a write-off. (You could even list the top 3 participants overall by number of books and by number of points, just for fun). That would also be helpful info for you in choosing teams evenly the next year.
But these are just suggestions - you did a wonderful job, and I'd more than happily participate again next year if nothing changed at all! :D
What about a thread on goodreads for recomendations like Captian's chat but for everyone?
AurorainBookland wrote: "What about a thread on goodreads for recomendations like Captian's chat but for everyone?"(This would work for me - I like it! :) Seconding Aurora's suggestion!)
Mod
I think having the recommendations on each individual team’s spreadsheet or on one spreadsheet all teams can access is better than a goodreads discussion page for 2 reasons:
1. If it’s on a spreadsheet it’s way more organised than a goodreads discussion page. All the tasks and their recommendations will be in order and right next to each other (like the task guidance but for recommendations) so you can more easily find a recommendation for the specific task you’re looking for. I’ll actually try to include links to goodreads pages for each book too so people can easily see what the books are.
2. We don’t have to deal with any kind of drama.
If it’s on individual team’s spreadsheets then only that team can access it, hence no kind of cheating or anything. If it’s one spreadsheet for all teams then whatever recommendations are on there are optional for people to add and it’s fair because everyone can view it.
I know it might seem excessive that I’m even thinking along these lines, especially because everyone here has been so great this year but I have to account for new people I don’t know next year taking part too and some people can get a little over-competitive. I love the competitive spirit! But if it goes overboard it can be problematic. There has been cheating drama in the past when I was really new to this and it was honestly really stressful for me. But it taught me that my role as a host is to mitigate any drama where possible and it’s my responsibility to make sure everyone has fun and stays safe on the group so I always think of whether things are fair and drama-free for everything. Hosting can be serious business!
@Aurora I might be remembering wrong but did you say earlier in the month that you had problems accessing spreadsheets? If it’s a device issue I probably won’t be able to help but if it’s a spreadsheet issue I can look into finding a solution to whatever the problem is.
Mod
For the page points at the end I think that’s kind of boring. Plus it makes it hard for teams to account for points they’ll get at the end that they don’t have throughout. Thicc book bonus haha! I do like that idea. Maybe I could do that instead of page points. Or do it in addition to it. I’m going to keep that one in mind.
The first time I read your overall standings paragraph I was confused because I thought you just meant the scores spreadsheet but I realise now you mean like a sort of games scoreboard or like a news ticker feed. And that is such a great idea! Is it feasible? I have absolutely no idea. I will look into it because I think that would be really cool. Like the fun stats but more lively. Where would you think it’d be better to see these overall standings stuff? On the scores spreadsheet or on each individual team’s spreadsheet? Or both?
For the MVP thing or even just like listing top participants who read the most that’s an interesting idea but I feel like it could be misconstrued. I invite people to the challenge under the message that even if they read a little that’s ok, so I wouldn’t want anyone to feel like they’re being shamed because they’re not reading loads. The challenge is mostly about motivating everyone to read as much as they can. But I do like this idea of awards for individuals. So I’m going to think of some way to try and incorporate this. We could have like awards I announce before the challenge starts like Person Who Read the Longest Book and then they get bonus points for their team at the end of the challenge. What do you think? I hope it doesn’t seem like I’m completely ignoring your idea, I just have to think from every angle before I consider an idea.
If you want to do awards, it could be for things like first to finish a prompt, most pages read, most genres read, best book finder/detective, most helpful recommendations -- not always about reading the most.You can have a single thread where you update scores daily. Just keep a single post and edit it. That's if you feel like doing that as a daily task.
Mod
Also I probably wouldn’t do the updated scores thing daily, it’d be weekly. The scores spreadsheet would still exist too. This would just be like top 3 teams of the week, top readers of the week, etc like the fun facts but cooler. So if I can come up with coding for it on the spreadsheet then it would be automatically updated itself. Maybe I’d put it on each team’s spreadsheets before the scores. I’ve already got some ideas so this’ll be fun to design!
Kadi wrote: "@Aurora @Capn I love this recommendations idea that you’ve all come up with. It’s such genius and it’s going to elevate next year’s challenge!I think having the recommendations on each individual ..."
That makes sense. A reccondation spreadsheet for each team would be less drama or no drama.
Yeah my old samsung tablet doesnt let me use spreadsheets but I can edit them on my phone so the issue was solved.
Kadi wrote: "@Capn these are some great ideas!For the page points at the end I think that’s kind of boring. Plus it makes it hard for teams to account for points they’ll get at the end that they don’t have th..."
I second you Kadi, I can't read that muvh sometimes it takes me longer to read one book, Im trying to spend time on other hobbies and sometimes theres other things going on so some days I can read only a little or not at all. But awards for longest book, etc sounds like a good idea.
Audrey wrote: "If you want to do awards, it could be for things like first to finish a prompt, most pages read, most genres read, best book finder/detective, most helpful recommendations -- not always about readi..."Love it!
Kadi wrote: "Those are great award ideas, thanks Audrey!Also I probably wouldn’t do the updated scores thing daily, it’d be weekly. The scores spreadsheet would still exist too. This would just be like top 3 ..."
Yes! Youre amazing Kadi.
Mod
All these ideas everyone’s given are great, I have so many things to bounce off of now and it’s going to be cool to come back in a year’s time and see some of your ideas actually implemented into the challenge.
Kadi wrote: "@Aurora Aaw thank you😊 and lol we’re the same! I’m a pretty average reader but some people read so fast! It’s so impressive I have no idea how they do it. And I don’t spend all my free time reading..."You're welcome :)
I ended up with 17 books on the challenge shelf, which is way above average for me. I still have a stack of owned MG books to be read. It was a great motivator.I wish I could have done more audiobooks, but so many had lots of holds.
@Kadi, sounds good! :)
How about a results summary (written), highlighting the achievements of each individual team? "Team A read the most overall books, at 150! Well done! Team B read the most audiobooks..... Team C had the widest range of tasks/categories completed.... Team D was the only team who got the _____ bonus, and Team E was the most active - had the highest average # of books per team member read." Nice to have a recognized accomplishment for everyone to feel good about at the end. :)
I thought part of the point really was to read as many MG books as possible during the challenge month, so, idk, I think I expected those stats to be a little more prominent. I read more books than I thought possible for myself - was interested in how my output compared to others (some people can read so quickly! I find that impressive, indeed!). :) But it's my first challenge - I'm learning!
But Kadi - that's AWFUL that you had to deal with DRAMA and CHEATING on a FOR-FUN, CHALLENGE YOURSELF challenge!!! >:( Extremely disappointed in humanity to hear that, sorry that you had to deal with that garbage, and WOW - the psychology behind that is shocking! XD Kind of funny, if you're not the one having to deal with it - hope you can laugh at it in retrospect anyway! How pathetic!! By all means, do whatever is necessary to insulate yourself (and participants) from that sort of behaviour! Unbelievable!!! I thought it was "challenge yourself, do it for fun" sort of thing - where's the fun if you take it so seriously?! :O
