reading race

Do you remember Reading Rainbow? Oh, I loved, loved that show--so magical. And Book It? I had a round purple pin with tiny yellow stars, and I'd get a personal pan pizza for every so-many books. We would writer our names and the number of books we'd read on a slip of paper, tie it to a balloon and release it into the wild. My mother baked me book-shaped cakes to congratulate me on reading a hundred or so books for the project.

I've been keeping a list in a notebook of all the books I've read for many years now. (I can tell you 2003 and 2004 were my best years for reading--about 150--and since I've started full time teaching, it generally is around 80, a number I am trying to break for 2008.) And the notebook list makes its way onto Good Reads, for the most part.

Now, I've received a new challenge. Each quarter, my students read 500 pages (at my old school it was 600) of prose for an independent reading project. I usually keep track of my own pages and put them up on the board. I have been proud of mine thus far (4883), though it makes sense this is the highest they've been since I'm no longer involved in the drama program. I've recently had a student challenge me, and she's at 4666; her name and numbers have gone up on the board too.

Between now and a week from Friday, I'm going to be reading furiously. I told her my goal was 6000 by the end of the quarter; she's agreed to the same.

Currently: The Peppered Moth by Margaret Drabble, a put-down-able book, which isn't making matters easier, especially since I'm trying to read a book a day this week. Whew.