Dewey's 24-hour Readathon

CUMULATIVE TOTALS

Pages read:

277 + 107 + 132 = 516

Time spent reading:

(lost track, but who cares?)

Titles I'm trying to read:

1. Dream When You're Feeling Blue ~ by Elizabeth Berg, 2007 ~ 277 pages read ~ one book completed
2. Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World ~ by Vicki Myron, 2008 ~ 107 pages read ~ one book partly read
3. Sophomore Switch ~ by Abby McDonald, 2009 ~ 132 pages read ~ one book partly read
4. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn ~ by Betty Smith, 1943

Mini-challenges completed:

1. Back-in-the-Day Children's Books
2. Six-Word Celebration
3. Indie Pride
4. Show Me the Books
5. Armchair Travelling
6. Pet Pics
7. Title Word Scramble
8. Nonfiction Book
9. Make It Up!

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MAKE IT UP:  mini-challenge

Lu of Lu's Raves and Rants has the final challenge of the Readathon.  "Take the letters of the title of a book that you read during  the readathon.  Using at least HALF of them, rearrange the letters to create a  word that DOESN’T exist. Make up a definition for your new word.  Be creative and have fun!"

From Sophomore Switch by Abby McDonald comes swooshicopter, a spiral-shaped leaf that falls from its tree in a twirling motion until it almost reaches the ground and then rises to fall repeatedly before coming to rest.

By the way, my spellcheck confirms that swooshicopter is NOT a word by putting that swiggly red line under it in both places!  Yes, I used it twice:  in the definition above and here in this explanatory paragraph.

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NONFICTION BOOK:  mini-challenge

I'm supposed to "grab a nonfiction book."  I can do this.  I can totally do this!  (Do I sound like the teens in the book I've been reading?)  The reason I can read a nonfiction book right now is that I already have one on my list (above) and on my reading stack beside me:  Dewey, of course!  Hosting this challenge is Susan of Scraps of Life.  Here's my first comment about Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron, 2008:

From what I've read so far, I'm far more interested in the parts about Dewey the cat than anything else.  So is my cat, Kiki.  Scroll down two mini-challenges to see the photo of Kiki reading the book.  All she writes about on her Kiki Caturdays is what the library cat -- Dewey Readmore Books -- does in the book.

That's Dewey in the photo, along with Vicki Myron, the librarian who wrote the book about him.

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TITLE WORD SCRAMBLE:  mini-challenge

This challenge is hosted by Sheery at Sheery's Place.  She wants us to unscramble these twenty book titles, adding, "The book titles are all fiction (just to make it a little easier).  They are a mix of modern, classic and children's titles."  Okay, here goes nothing!

1. yfferil enal = Firefly Lane
2. aste fo eend = East of Eden
3. retwa orf pntshleea = Water for Elephants
4. ot lkli a ckomgnrbdii = To Kill a Mockingbird
5. het gtaer ysbtag = The Great Gatsby
6. yrhra tetrpo dna eth lyhdtea wollsah = Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
7. ht e rat fo nrgcai ni eht nair = The Art of Racing in the Rain
8. eth mite reslveart efwi = The Time Traveler's Wife
9. eht rlig ithw eht gnodar ooattt = The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
10. ydira fo a mypiw idk = Diary of a Wimpy Kid
11. a kwrlnei ni emit = A Wrinkle in Time

12. het rpoal sxprese = The Polar Express
13. vole dewlak ni = Love Walked In
14. reehw eth dwli hingts rea = Where the Wild Things Are
15. eht ginnhsi = The Shining
16. dnohogigt oonm = Goodnight Moon
17. vwtienrie hwti a pvmarie = Interview with a Vampire
18. eht cretse file fo eesb = The Secret Life of Bees
19. eht raesch = The Search
20. het pelh = The Help

I did it!  Now that I see the titles, I can add that I've read eleven of these 20 books.  They're the ones in red.

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PET PICS: mini-challenge

This mini-challenge is hosted by Lynne of Lynne's Book Reviews, who asks for a photo of my pet and the title of my favorite animal book.  She also wants a sentence written using words starting with the first letter of the main character's name.  What a coincidence!  My cat Kiki and I have been reading Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron.  Here's a Dewey sentence:

Dewey didn't dig dating dogs.

Oops!  Sorry, Lynne, I just noticed the heading of your blog shows a dog with the book Why Dogs Are Better than Cats.  I'm sure Dewey would say you simply don't know the right cats -- and he still wouldn't have dreamed of dating a dog.

Kiki says posing for a picture with the book is enough of a Caturday post for today.  After all, posing for half a second is just so tiring.  Her words must wait until next week.

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ARMCHAIR TRAVELLING: mini-challenge

Marg at The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader is hosting this one.  Her challenge is "to write a post sharing some of the sites from your books, or some facts about the place where your books are set."  In Sophomore Switch, party girl Tasha gets to spend a semester abroad at staid Oxford University in Britain, while studious Emily leaves Oxford for Tasha's UC Santa Barbara in California.  Here are photos of the two schools, neither of which I've ever seen.  Do you think you could guess which is which?

Thanks, Marg!  This actually makes reading the book more fun.  I hadn't thought about looking up photographs of the actual places, even though the characters are in real places.

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SHOW ME THE BOOKS: mini-challenge

Crystal at My Reading Room is hosting this challenge:  "I want a picture of books - show me a book shelf, your tbr pile, your nightstand piled with books, your prized ARCs, whatever, just post a picture of some books ..."

Here's a photo of one small section of one bookshelf.  I have seven tall bookcases with six wide shelves each, and that doesn't count the millions of books stacked on every flat surface in my house!

Note:  The book from the earlier mini-challenge (below) is standing face-forward on the bottom shelf in this photo.  Aren't I creative?

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INDIE PRIDE:  mini-challenge

This one is hosted by {Indie}pendent Books.  "I want to see pictures!!!  And of course since I focus on indie books, I want to see them represented!  What is an indie book?  A book that has been published by a non-big-six publishing house. These big-six houses include Macmillan, Random House, Simon and Schuster, Penguin Group, Harper Collins, Hachette Book Group. Any other houses are eligible!"

I'm reading Sophomore Switch by Abby McDonald, published by Candlewick Press in 2009.

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SIX-WORD CELEBRATION: mini-challenge

Thanks to Andi at Estella's Revenge for this one: "Your challenge is to create a six-word celebration of Dewey's Read-a-Thon."  My six words:

Reading worldwide,

as we remember Dewey!

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BACK-IN-THE-DAY CHILDREN'S BOOKS: mini-challenge

Thanks to Elizabeth at Miss Wisabus for hosting the first mini-challenge:

What were some of your favorite children’s books when you were younger?

When I was a child, one of my favorite books was Little Black Sambo (click to read my review).  He is one of the cleverest children in all of literature.

Do you have any new favorites now that you’re an adult?

I love Miss Rumphius! I didn't discover her until I was an adult -- actually, the book wasn't even written until my children were grown -- but I think it's one of the best books ever written.

Have you included any children’s or YA titles in your Read-A-Thon stack this year?

No, I don't have any children's books around this time.  Wait, I do have one YA book on my stack:  Sophomore Switch by Abby McDonald, 2009.  Does that count?

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APRIL 2010 READ-A-THON.  The ten books pictured on the left were the ones I chose for the Readathon in April.  I recognize a couple of the books and must admit I still haven't read them!  That's okay, since I've read more than a hundred others since then, including some of those pictured.  I decided not to do the Readathon this time because I have so much I must do today for the classes I'm teaching -- like grading papers, creating lesson plans, and developing a PowerPoint presentation for next week -- but I couldn't help myself.  This morning, after the Readathon had already started, I signed up.  Yup, I'm officially crazy.

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The last word (for me):  bookcation

I discovered a blog I'll have to check out.  It's about traveling in books, and it's called Kiki's Bookcation.