Reading Challenge Roundup 2025: For Adults and Kids

Happy New Year!

I love the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. It’s such a good time to reflect on the past year and set goals for the year ahead.

Some of the goals I usually set are related to reading, of course.

Here is something I’ve been thinking about in terms of reading goals: If you’re an avid reader like me, it might boggle your mind to know that the median number of books read by an adult per year in the U.S. is less than 5 books! According to a recent study, that amount is mirrored in the number of books teens are reading.

Now, when I take into account how little I read in high school, I’m not quite as worried. Because I loved reading as a kid, I came back to it as an adult. However, I care deeply that kids learn to love reading before they hit the teenage years when they’re busy with athletics, social events, and…social media.

One of the kickers from the studies I looked at is that an adult who models reading was one of the biggest predictors of a child being a “frequent reader.” I’ve mentioned before about how important it is to model reading for kids (both reading your own books and by reading with/to them).

With that in mind, I’d like to encourage you to be intentional too in how much you read this year.

That doesn’t mean you have to set a sky-high goal.
Maybe you just decide to track what you read so you have a baseline of what and how much you’re reading.
|Maybe you’re an average adult looking to read more than the average.
Maybe you’re a bookworm like me.
Maybe you’re a parent who is wanting to get their kid(s) to read more, and you’re wanting to model good reading habits.

You’ve come to the right place!

This next year, join me and others in the reading world as we set some goals and read some great books!

I’ve rounded up some tried and true reading challenges for kids and adults alike, and I’m also sharing the genre challenge that I give to my students (based off of The Book Whisperer reading challenge).

For Adults and Teens

The Book Girls’ Guide Reading Challenges

These ladies know how to organize reading challenges well! In fact, they keep adding more challenges, and now they’re up to 6 different, year-long challenges.

I like these challenges because they provide prompts for each month AND they also give a list of books that fit that prompt before the month starts. It minimizes the work of finding your own books for you if you need some help in that arena!

The book lists also help because since the Book Girls send out an email with books for the coming month, so they help you remember to check in on the progress of your reading goals. I’ve participated without joining their Facebook group for discussion, but I’m sure that part is worth doing also if it tickles your fancy.

52 Book Club Challenge

Next, I have to mention the 52 Book Club Challenge like I did last year. It’s the only “random prompt” challenge that I am remotely interested in.

While this challenge does not provide any specific book titles, there is a community aspect where readers share what they’re reading or have read for a given prompt, so you can get some help there. Or, if you like the idea of being as “creative as you want” with each prompt, then this could be a great one for you!

For those who like to come up with their own challenges, I have two options for you:

Modern Mrs. Darcy’s “Evergreen” Reading Life Challenge

First is using Modern Mrs. Darcy’s “Evergreen” Reading Life Challenge. Rather than focusing on the quantity or on specific prompts, this challenge encourages each reader to figure out what they are wanting to improve in their reading life.
Perhaps it’s finding better quality books or reading more backlist books.
Maybe it’s reflecting more on each book you read or rereading some favorites.
Whatever it is, you set the goal and then monitor your progress. Anne gives you all the tools you need to make a plan for your reading life.

Storygraph’s Challenge Directory

Second, is looking at the Storygraph site’s Challenge Directory. Readers on Storygraph can make up their own challenge and make it open for others to participate. This directory can help in a couple of ways. If you like to create your own goal and would like some ideas to jumpstart you, you can browse all sorts of categories of challenges and get ideas for your own. You could join one that looks like it fits your goals, or you could simply create your own personal challenge on Storygraph and track your progress there.

For Kids

Note: As with all things reading + parenting, know your reader! Some challenges will hinder their love for reading rather than help. Also, feel free to ditch a challenge if it’s not helping your kids read and LOVE to read. Actually, do that for yourself, too!

Read Around the World (includes a coloring tracking sheet!)

The Book Girls’ Guide also has a Read Around the World challenge for kids. It looks like it’s an “evergreen” challenge, meaning it doesn’t change from year to year. This challenge encourages kids to read a book set on each continent.

I love that they have a coloring page to go with it so that kids can visually track their progress and have something tangible to do to mark off each book. What’s more, just like with their adult challenges, they have a curated list for each continent to help catch your child’s interest and guide you and your child in choosing books that fit.

Imagination Soup’s 12 Book Reading Challenge

(scroll down past the 30-day challenge at the top)

I like Imagination Soup’s emphasis on time spent reading, since we really want little readers to enjoy reading and understand what they read. Rather than kids zooming through books so that they can meet their goal, they can feel free to read at whatever pace is good for them and rack up minutes toward the 20 minutes per day reading goal.

Read Across America

This challenge includes some books that I can’t wholeheartedly recommend, but I love this concept as a jumping off point, especially for families with a range of reading levels.

This has three books for each month: one for elementary readers, middle grade readers, and young adult readers. Maybe you can take a look at some of the upcoming months and choose a topic that everyone in the family can read about. Or just get some quality book ideas for whatever goals you set.

Genre Challenge

I created a genre challenge for my students that is based on both a number goal and the goal of reading a greater variety of books. This challenge is based off of Donalyn Miller’s genre challenge that she describes in The Book Whisperer.

Kids don’t always know that they’ll enjoy a specific type of book, and they might need some encouragement to try new-to-them genres. This is where you come in to guide them!

The document that is linked above shows a goal for 30 books rather than 40, but you can make a copy and edit for however many books would be appropriate for your child. The biggest thing is for them to discover new types of books that they enjoy and to love reading more by the end of the year.

My Own Reading Goals for 2025

Now, you may be wondering at this point what goals I am choosing to set for myself this year. Knowing that goals need to be specific, measurable, and attainable, here are the goals I’m setting for myself and my little pre-reader this year:

Read to my little guy every day for at least a minute or two.
Since he is under age one right now, I don’t expect him to sit still for endless stories, though he occasionally listens to an entire book at a time. Mainly I want to build in the habit of reading every day.
Do something related to my own reading life for about 10 minutes each day. That could be reading, writing a review, or finding some new titles that I’m interested in.
Track what I read. I don’t think I will set a specific goal for pages or books read; however, I do like to see the numbers at the end of the year, so I will record the titles of what I read.
Track why I want to read a book. I often forget by the time I get my hands on a copy of a book, so I’d like to be able to jog my memory on what interested me in the first place.

What about you? What reading goals (or other goals) are you setting for yourself for 2025?

a Look at a Book