Reading Challenges

For Adults: October is Family History Month and November is Family Stories Month, when we celebrate our histories and stories passed down from generations. Tales of laughter, adventure, and love can carry us through the years. Record your own origin story, listen to stories from loved ones, and read books about families of all shapes and sizes. Log your reading and activities to earn badges throughout the challenge.

Check out the Family Stories display on the first floor of the library or the recommended reading list on Beanstack to find titles for the challenge. Sign up on Beanstack today!

The library is challenging all students from Kindergarten to Middle School to read titles from three Illinois State Award lists: Monarch, Bluestem, and Caudill. If you complete the challenge for your age group, you will receive a prize (starting November 4). You may also vote at the library for your favorite book from the lists between February 1 and March 13 (voting for the Caudill Award runs from February 1 – 26 only).

The 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten Reading Challenge is a national initiative designed to encourage parents to read with their children before beginning Kindergarten. This exposure to reading and early literacy helps babies, toddlers, and preschoolers develop the skills that they will need to be successful in school. Additionally, it promotes a lifelong love for books and provides a chance for you to bond with your child in a unique way.

Join our reading challenge and begin collecting brag tags. Readers in Kindergarten through Grade 5 can select and collect tags for every 10 books they read. Fiction, nonfiction, graphic novels . . . everything counts! Sign up to get a reading log and your first tag. Read at your own pace, and when you’ve reached the goal, check in at the Youth Services Desk to choose a tag. Collect as many as you can!

Challenge yourself to read 60 books before high school!

Readers in Grades 6–8 can sign up at the Youth Services Desk to receive your starter pack, which includes book tracking sheets. For the first 10 books that you log in a school year, you will receive a small prize. When you have logged a total of 20 books for the school year, you will receive a book to keep. Participants who read 20 books in 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th grades will receive a high school survival kit.