Around the Year in 52 Books discussion
Seasonal Reading Challenge
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2025-26 Winter Challenge: Introduction and FAQs
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For example:
Partridge - a tree on the cover, or maybe fruit on the cover or being important to the story, or perhaps set in an orchard or market garden
Turtle doves – perhaps a love story or romance
French hens - could be set in a country different from your own
Calling birds - someone goes on a visit
Rings - someone in the book gets engaged or married; or a crime ring, or maybe a story where a phone call is a major plot point
Geese - a silly or foolish character, or an egg on the cover, or a book that gives you goosebumps
Swans - water on the cover
Maids – a female main character
Ladies - someone in the story dances, or maybe the story involves Ladies in high society
Lords - someone in the story is rich, or tries to “lord it over” other people
Pipers - music features in the story, or perhaps the story is set in Scotland, or someone takes a "leap of faith"
Drummers - A loud noise (crash, explosion, screams) in story, or something more gentle, like a woodpecker on the cover as they “drum” on trees.
Question: one of the options for filling the "letter" challenge is "The author's first and last initials." Since we are matching to single letters, not words, does that mean the author's first OR last initial? Or do both first and last initials have to be the same as the letter you are matching that book to?
Mod
So we are reading 12 books starting on December 1, 2025 and ending when?
Question: Will there be a page in the google sheets to track this Challenge?
Mod
Good Challenge!Is there a minimum page length requirement?
Robin H-R wrote: "Good Challenge!Is there a minimum page length requirement?"
Oh gosh, I hope not! I want to do both parts but that's a lot to read, plus I just finished an 80-page book that is perfect for the challenge...
Mod
Is there a minimum page length requirement?"
Since there is no prize for this, there is no minimum page length or restriction on type of book (children's, graphic novels, etc.)
It can be different in read-a-thon, or when there is a prize involved, such as the winner getting tochoose a prompt.
Robin P wrote: "Robin H-R wrote: "Good Challenge!Is there a minimum page length requirement?"
Since there is no prize for this, there is no minimum page length or restriction on type of book (children's, graphi..."
Great! I've got a lot of "shorts" on my TBR.
The 2025-26 Winter Challenge is based around The Twelve Days of Christmas. You can choose to either do the "prompts" challenge, or the "spell-it-out" challenge, or even both if you feel ambitious.
On the twelfth day of Christmas
My true love gave to me…
Twelve drummers drumming,
Eleven pipers piping,
Ten lords a-leaping,
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five gold(en) rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves
And a partridge in a pear tree.
For the "prompts" challenge, you can use all fourteen lines, or just the twelve with the actual gifts mentioned, and you can fulfil each line however you want. You can choose to be literal – using something on the cover that represents the line, or a word in the title, or author's first and last initials in the line. Or you can spread your net rather wider.
For the spell-it-out challenge, we are using: THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS. Choose a single word from the title (or both THE and OF, if you choose to go short!), choose multiple words, or do the whole thing if you like to set yourself a challenge.
You can fill in a letter in one of four ways:
1. The first letter of the title (excluding A, An and The)
2. The author's first or last initial
3. A genre on the main book page
4. The first initial of the first name of the book’s main character.
Note: if you decide to do both types of challenge, you can only use each individual book in one or the other, not both.