Middle Grade Madness! discussion
September Reading Challenge 2025
>
Ideas, Improvements and Suggestions
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Kadi, Creator
(new)
Oct 01, 2025 01:11PM
Mod
reply
|
flag
Mod
I feel like it wasn’t as big a hit as the Golden Task Points were last year, I think they were a lot more fun😞 maybe it was a bit too difficult!
I liked title points, because it was an easy target! Without having previously read a book, content points are harder to guess at. But titles are right there on the cover!
Mod
Did you think the Title Points would’ve been more fun if there were more Title Words?
I’m trying to think of some cool new spin we can do next year instead of the Title Points or some way we can like upgrade the Title Points.
Mod
And I think next year we should have bigger teams like maybe even just 2 teams of 8 people or something so there can be a bit of a race with finishing the tasks. Maybe I could bring back the bonus tasks🤔 just throwing ideas around because I’m usually most creative right after the Challenge has finished and then I will go quiet and come alive again next year just before the Challenge starts😂
bonus tasks were good. I kind of want to be a captain next year but the title point thing confused me, maybe it was just because it was a busy month for me. Had family stuff going on so maybe I read that bit too fast.And yes to bigger teams, we had at least 2 people suddenly drop out.
But it was still really fun and everyone who took part seemed to have a good time.
Maybe make a clear timeline for when the categories get added? And have that info be on the challenge page where you put the rules. When the spreadsheet changed due to tasks being added it was unexpected to some.
I love title points. I thought that it was a nice edition.We should definitely do two teams of eight. Every year we have the problem of people dropping out. Thus making easier for other teams to win simply because they have more people to read more books.
Kadi wrote: "Also what would be everyone’s thoughts on bringing back the Category Read by 3 Team Members bonus points?And I think next year we should have bigger teams like maybe even just 2 teams of 8 people..."
All those sound good.
Mod
Also I don’t know if you remember that one year when the Challenge was still pretty new but we all did a crazy good job that year and one team finished EVERY task in like week 3. It gave me so much stress that I still remember that and I’ve tried to avoid that ever since by not making the teams too big so we don’t finish the tasks too early. Unfortunately that has created the opposite effect of the too small teams only getting about half the tasks completed.
It always surprises me that there’s actually a lot of factors to consider when putting the Challenge together! It’s quite fun to see it all come together so I really appreciate all the feedback guys it’s very helpful👏🏻
Mod
Definitely true for me! This September has been the busiest month of my life! XD August is my preference!
Kadi - how about something like a race to reveal categories? For example, whenever the first team satisfies task 1, then the hidden tasks 2-5 are revealed for all? Would mean locking that score in, though (fixed).I haven't thought enough about that, so please just use it as a creative prompt if you like the idea. (First team to satisfy that task and unlock the category gets bonus points..)
August should be fine for me, I'll add it to my planner!
Mod
@Capn I think that’s a super cool idea! But my thing with that is that I’ve never completed the tasks in task order and I like that the Challenge lets you pick whatever tasks you like and read it in any order you like, plus that would require more monitoring to see when a team has unlocked the next categories.
But I think that idea would be really cool for a different challenge like a new one. I’m going to sit with the idea for a bit to see if I can develop it into something. Thanks for sharing it!😊
In terms of the suggestions all talked about here, I actually love the Title points! It honestly helps me look at my shelf for priorities. I didn’t get to read them this time around but I liked having them. I’m also good with bigger teams just to account for people dropping out or not reading as much as they would like.Honestly I would say the tasks are always so creative (sometimes they are really hard) I would love to have maybe some recommendations for certain tasks that are harder and that way we can go out of our comfort zone and try to find books that are different. I also wouldn’t really worry about running out of tasks if you have either bonus tasks or the title points because I would say the title points can help with people who finish quickly to try and collect all the title points.
Also I remember that year. I think the issue wasn’t the amount of tasks, I think it was just back then we didn’t organize it based on the amount of books so we had a lot of people who read a lot of books per month and they finished it. But if you include extra little things to collect such as title points, golden tasks, I think we will be satisfied XD.
My suggestion would be to maybe do it for two months because I feel like it would give slower reads more of a chance to participate and maybe you can add three new categories when the new month starts so people can still be entertained (maybe that’s the one that we can pick in the beginning). I also think with how complex some of the tasks are, it will allow for more planning and also we can get a master recommendation sheet for the harder tasks.
If we are only doing it for one month, then August is definitely the busier month because it’s when school starts (and I work at a school). So it’s going to be a bit harder. September is usually when it slows down so I was fine when it changed to September. But whatever the group decides, I will always try to participate!
Mod
I’m really glad you’ve mentioned extending the Challenge to 2 months. It’s not unheard of, I took part in another group’s 3 months team reading challenge a few years ago (not MG).
To be honest when we were coming up to the end of the Challenge this year I was wishing we could continue because I still had so many ideas of books to read and was enjoying it all.
Ok so guys, how would you feel about next year the Challenge being 2 months long in August AND September?
It would give us more breathing room, more tasks, more books to read. And then you can really pace yourself and don’t have to rush.
I think it would be cool to have something like a weekly “discussion” question, that people can optionally answer in their groups. Like, “what do you admire about a main character you’ve read so far” or “has anything surprised you about one of the books you’ve read?” This could spark some fun conversations about the books.
Mod
What do you think of a 2 month Challenge next year? Would it work for you?
Absolutely love the idea of a two month challenge! I’m all for it. And yea I was also doing the UNO challenge after you recommended it and yea I also like the fact that’s it’s 3 months. I don’t know if I will sign up again but I always try to do the MG challenge so I think making it two months gives it more breathing room. Also I love the idea of small discussion topics, that would be fun too!
Having the challenge be 2 months is fine with me!
I have ADHD, so I kind of liked the urgency of one month and trying to hit my anticipated book count for the team. But also this was my first challenge! My tune might change if I tried a longer one.
Also wanted to say thanks for all your hard work organizing this, Kadi!
Mod
Thank you so much Anna! Thank you for taking part, it makes all the difference❤
Also great to hear it Aurora👏🏻
