Are you still wanting to set some reading goals for yourself for this year? Perhaps you’re wondering what those goals should be?
Reading challenges can help with that!
Three years ago, I posted a roundup of reading challenges from across the internet. I don’t honestly remember if I completed all the ones that I said I would, but I loved finding several different challenges for you all! It gave me plenty of good ideas, and it was so enjoyable to see the different ideas people came up with for reading challenges.
Though my reading goals this year are about quantity over quality, I know others will still enjoy being prompted to include different categories in their reading to broaden their reading scope. So I decided I’d do another roundup this year and include my thoughts about these challenges.
Yes, I realize that it’s past January 1st – but only by a few days. Don’t let that stop you! These are year-long challenges. Losing a week most likely won’t make or break it for you.
If it does, adjust the challenge(s) you choose to be more reasonable for yourself. Reading should be done out of enjoyment and for learning’s sake, not for competition. 🙂
Note: This post may contain affiliate links to bookstores, which means, at no extra cost to you, I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my links. Please read full disclosure for more information.
Jump to a specific spot in the post:
For Adults: Reading Challenges
The Book Girls’ Guide
I found this website a few years back, and I love their book lists! They actually have a few different challenges each year.
I do not know how they keep up with so many, but find whatever fits your fancy! No requirement to do them all.
I’m looking forward to getting some quality books to read from their “In Case You Missed It Backlist Challenge“. In fact, that’s where I got the idea for the audiobook I’m currently listening to during my commute!
One aspect I particularly appreciate about this site is that they curate book lists for their topics, rather than just giving readers a genre/category and letting people find whatever they like. That type of challenge has its merits as well, but I find that it is helpful to have a list to choose from if I need it. Let me tell you, their lists are long, full of quality books, and have excellent reviews and synopses! I can’t recommend enough this pair’s book recommendations.
Find The Book Girls’ Guide 2024 reading challenges here.
Modern Mrs. Darcy
If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ll know that I have often used Modern Mrs. Darcy’s site for book ideas and a solid reading challenge.
Since the end of 2021, though, MMD stopped creating a new reading challenge for each year. Rather, they put together a challenge that can be used over and over, but is still unique each year. As Anne Bogel puts it on the challenge post, it guides each reader to think about what they want their reading life to look like, not simply giving readers a checklist of prompts, genres, or books to read.
If you’d like to be asked some reflective questions to help you establish more intentionality in your reading and plan out some good books to read, this build-your-own challenge might just be for you!
Find the MMD Reading (Life) Challenge here.
The 52 Book Club
The idea behind their challenge is pretty clear: read 52 books in a year. (If you need help with the math, that comes out to one book per week. 🙂 ) Though I haven’t participated in this challenge myself, it has quite a variety of prompts, ranging from “a book with a yellow spine” to “a book with a plot similar to another book.”
This leaves the choice of book wiiiiide open for each individual reader. One great thing is, though, you don’t have to go in order of the prompts. The second great thing is they have some great social media pages where people share the books they’ve read for the prompts, so you can get ideas for books that fulfill each prompt.
Find The 52 Book Club Challenge here.
For Kids: Reading Challenges
Whether your kiddo is an avid bookworm or a “do I have to?” reader, book challenges might be a useful tool! I found a couple of options for you, with more listed in the “More Options” section.
Growing Book by Book
What I like about Growing Book by Book’s challenge is that it’s broken into months. Children aren’t developmentally ready to view a whole year at a time. Even a month can be a stretch, depending on the age.
The fact that this challenge has a different type of challenge for each month makes it more accessible and keeps it fresh for little ones.
January’s challenge is for specific books, but don’t worry about having to buy them. They have links to watch a reading online.
July’s challenge is an “ice cream scoop” challenge: you add a paper scoop to your cone for every book you read. The challenge is to see how many scoops you can add to your cone!
Fun stuff 🙂
You can also be flexible with it: if your kiddo isn’t much of a reader, do one challenge until it is complete, even if it’s longer than a month. If your kid needs a break from a challenge some months, don’t do one until the next!
Find Growing Book by Book’s Reading Challenge here!
P.S. – I’ll probably be mentioning this site again. It looks fabulous for parents and teachers!
Imagination Soup
This reading challenges focuses on time spent reading, rather than individual books. Many teachers (including me!) strongly recommend that kids spend at least 20 minutes a day reading.
The difference between a kid who reads 20 minutes per day versus fewer minutes per day is vast. Daily reading for kids has many academic benefits, but it has even more benefits for…well, life.
The 7,000 minutes of reading challenge is a bit less than 20 minutes per day for a whole calendar year (not just a school year) in case your kid misses a few day. This challenge comes with printable trackers, so it can be modified for reluctant or avid readers.
This site has a solid grasp on the challenge of building intrinsic motivation in (some) kids to read, so it also has some great suggestions beyond just the reading challenge.
Find the 7,000 minutes of reading challenge here.
More Options (lists on lists on lists)
If you’re like me, too many options is overwhelming.
If you’re not like me, you might want as many options as you can get.
If that’s you, check out these places that list dozens of reading challenges:
- Challenges on Storygraph – have you heard of Storygraph? It’s the best competitor for Goodreads, and, though just a couple years old, they’re making great strides. You might just like it better than Goodreads. Who knows? Even if you don’t, they have several reading challenges of all kinds.
- Candid Cover’s Ultimate List Reading Challenges – holy moly does she ever have reading challenges listed here! She also has some challenges for kids!
- Introverted Reader’s list of reading challenges – This list of challenges isn’t as extensive, but it still includes challenges that I didn’t include above. Rather, this book blogger simply lists the challenges she’s hosting and a few additional ones that she’s participating in.
- The Reading Roundup’s challenges ideas for kids – it’s a bit more open-ended than some other challenges, but that means you can tailor it to your kid!
- For older elementary students and older, I enjoyed issuing a 40-book genre challenge, based on the challenge explained in The Book Whisperer. You could do this with your family or in your classroom. I talked about how I did this in this post.
Which ones sound good to you? Are you participating in any other ones that our reading community should know about? Tell us in the comments!
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