{"id":20,"date":"2011-07-04T20:10:03","date_gmt":"2011-07-05T03:10:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somethingworthreading.ca\/?p=20"},"modified":"2011-07-14T22:33:16","modified_gmt":"2011-07-15T05:33:16","slug":"the-book-a-day-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.somethingworthreading.ca\/?p=20","title":{"rendered":"The Book-A-Day Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

I never seem to be able to find enough time to just sit down and read extensively.\u00c2\u00a0 Although it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s part of my job to read novels that I can recommend to students and find concepts that will further my professional development, other demands of my life often take me away from the leisure reading time that I enjoyed so much as I was growing up.\u00c2\u00a0 Perhaps that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why I am so intrigued by The Book Whisperer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s<\/a> reading challenge.\u00c2\u00a0 Her lofty goal, that she also presents to other bibliophiles, is to read one book per day over the summer.\u00c2\u00a0 The rules appear to be fairly simple:<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 read one book per day for the remainder of summer vacation
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 these books can be fiction, non-fiction, professional books, children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s books, young adult books, graphic novels, poetry books, picture books, etc.\u00c2\u00a0 Anything that allows you to read words on a page and gets some analytical synapses firing.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 You can set your own start date and end date.\u00c2\u00a0 Because I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve already read 4 books since July 1st, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll make that my start date, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll make August 31st my end date.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 You can space out your reading time.\u00c2\u00a0 For example, if you have a leisurely day in which you read three books, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re covered reading-wise for the next two days.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Post your book titles, and any reviews, on your blog, twitter, etc. so others can be aware for your progress.<\/p>\n

I like the idea of holding myself accountable for finishing books that have been accumulating in my house for quite some time, and I think that I will become wiser once I complete this challenge.\u00c2\u00a0 So far the four books I have read are:<\/p>\n

July 1st<\/strong>: Four Pictures by Emily Carr<\/em>, by Nicolas Debon
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 This is a graphic novel describing four periods of famous Canadian painter Emily Carr\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life.\u00c2\u00a0 I appreciate Debon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s efforts to make these time periods emotional for the reader.\u00c2\u00a0 However, perhaps because I have read Carr\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s autobiography and have loved her paintings and writings since I was a teenager, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help but think of how much he simplified these life events in order to create the cartoons.<\/p>\n

July 2nd<\/strong>: The Warlock (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, #5)<\/em>, by Michael Scott
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 This is the fifth in a series of six novels, with the sixth novel coming out in 2012.\u00c2\u00a0 Twins Sophie and Josh Newman are given a prophecy, and battle gods from several different mythologies in order to succeed or fail in achieving their destinies.\u00c2\u00a0 The plot can be convoluted at times, but the way Scott ends his chapters and books with suspense keeps dragging me back into the series.<\/p>\n

July 3rd<\/strong>: My Story: Pyramid of Secrets: Nebka, Giza, Egypt 2517 BC, by Jim Eldridge
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m teaching Ancient Civilizations in Grade 7 Social Studies next year, and bought this book because I thought it might be a good cross-curricular novel.\u00c2\u00a0 While I found the plot to be fairly predictable, it did an admirable job of explaining how the pyramids were built and how the farmers created life out of the desert.\u00c2\u00a0 The story is narrated through the eyes of Nebka, a 12-year old farmer who goes to build Khafre\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pyramid during the Nile flooding.<\/p>\n

July 4th<\/strong>: The Throne of Fire (The Kane Chronicles #2)<\/em>, by Rick Riordan
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2I do find the mythology in this series difficult to follow at times, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve decided that might be because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to tie together Egyptian mythology into one comprehensive story when the mythology itself is so fragmented.\u00c2\u00a0 However, Riordan continues to do a great job in creating interesting characters that I feel for.\u00c2\u00a0 He is quickly becoming my favourite author.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I never seem to be able to find enough time to just sit down and read extensively.\u00c2\u00a0 Although it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s part of my job to read novels that I can recommend to students and find concepts that will further my professional development, other demands of my life often take me away from the leisure reading time…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-reading"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5yfMi-k","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.somethingworthreading.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.somethingworthreading.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.somethingworthreading.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.somethingworthreading.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.somethingworthreading.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.somethingworthreading.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.somethingworthreading.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.somethingworthreading.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.somethingworthreading.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}