More Reading Fiber

I've always loved to read. As a kid, I used to not only read voraciously, but I also used to play with my books, building forts so that I could literally protect myself from the outside world and my noisy hoard of siblings to read. As I've gotten older, this initial love has turned itself both into a comforting hobby and a profession. Now, in addition to reading confidently myself, I work every day to inspire the same love in my kiddos at school.

However, I will say that starting grad school (for a master's in reading instruction no less) has gotten me into some very, very bad reading habits. Namely, I've been reading a lot of crap. Very enjoyable, very vacation-y, crap. While I love these young adult-ish books, I also need to get my reading back on track. With less time to read for fun due to all my course reading, I was choosing to read "snack" type books- they fed the urge to read, but didn't really sustain my soul's need to read interesting, meaningful, and think-y books. So, it's time to find books that will balance my reading pyramid a bit.

In an attempt to balance my reading "diet", I'm joining two reading challenges for 2010: the Book Awards Reading Challenge (http://bookawardschallenge.blogspot.com/), in which I will have to read 10 books winning 10 different awards in 2010, and the 2010 Pub Challenge, in which I will need to read a minimum of 10 books first published in the U.S. in 2010. (http://1morechapter.com/pub/?p=57). While this blog is more of a chronicle of being a freshly married, veteran teacher who likes to read, run, and cause mayhem with her husband (also a contributer) than a book blog, I will be posting on my progress in these challenges with brief reviews and thoughts. Thanks to my friend Rebecca at The Book Lady's Blog (thebookladysblog.com) for the inspiration!