MotherReader

I must repeat that even though the contest is called the 48 Hour Book Challenge, it is hard for me to conceive of people reading for the entire time. Stunning! This year four people read and blogged for the entire forty-eight hours! No breaks that didn’t come with an audiobook soundtrack and no sleep — which is just a little bit crazy, but in a good way. Okay, to be fair, the second two reported a hair less than the 48 hours, but by executive decision, they win too.

The winners of The Sixth Annual 48 Hour Book Challenge are:

• Everyone has a Blue Castle...
  Featuring an archivist masquerading as a reference librarian
  
• Books Like Breathing
  Featuring an opinionated New Yorker with a caffeine addition
  
• Chance Encounter
  Featuring a librarian who likes sensible shoes, but can’t manage a bun
  
• The Purpled One
  Featuring a second-time winner from Maryland
  

Great job! Now, more prizes! I have books for participants selected with the Random Integer Generator. Participants had to complete twelve hours of reading/blogging/networking to be eligible for prizes. In the order drawn, the winners are:

• The Children’s War
• Drivin’ on 9
• Charlotte’s Library
• Hood and Hat
• Library Book Nook

Prize winners, please write me at MotherReader AT gmail DOT com with your address and the books you’d most be interested in receiving. If you’d like a personalized copy, please note to whom you’d like it signed; I’ll do my best to accommodate. Books donated by authors are: The Latte Rebellion, by Sarah Jamila Stevenson; Scars, by Cheryl Rainfield; Dragon Speaker: The Last Dragon, by Cheryl Rainfield; Little Chicken’s Big Day, by Katie Davis and Jerry Davis (with bonus onesie!); I Fooled You: Ten Stories of Tricks, Jokes, and Switcheroos, anthology signed by Carmela Martino.

I’m also giving an “Almost Made It” prize to a blogger who worked so hard to read the whole time, and then dozed off in the night. So a signed and personalized copy of When Life Gives You OJ, by Erica Perl (with drawstring backpack and water bottle!) to Over the Moon and Sun!

For the Sixth Annual 48 Hour Book Challenge we had eighty people complete the challenge, with many blogs listing totals of twenty hours or more. Here they are, in order of their finish line sign-in:

48 Hour Book Challenge Twenty Hours Club

1. MotherReader • 28 hours
2. Blue Castle • 48 hours
3. Reading Chick • 24 hours
4. Libr*Fiti • 21 hours
5. Over the Moon and Sun • 45 hours
6. True Book Addict • 25.25 hours
7. So Many Books • 32.25 hours
8. Leeswammes • 22.25 hours
9. Ms. Yingling • 35 hours
10. Stacked • 30 hours
11. Chance Encounter • 47.5 hours
12. Handmade by Mikaiya • 22 hours
13. Book Nut • 23.5 hours
14. Joy’s Book Blog • 21 hours
15. Abby the Librarian • 31 hours
16. I Write in Books • 20 hours
17. Just an Obsurvashun • 26.75 hours
18. Books Like Breathing • 48 hours
19. Babylon Reader • 21 hours
20. The Children’s War • 30.5 hours
21. Library Book Nook • 25.5 hours
22. Confessions of a Bibliovore • 20.75 hours
23. Zappo’s Read-a-Rama • 21.5 hours
24. RovingFiddlehead KidLit • 21 hours
25. Blog From the Windowsil • 25.5 hours
26. SonderBooks • 30.5 hours
27. Library Chicken • 32 hours
28. Crowding the Book Truck • 29.25 hours
29. WhatYA Reading • 21.5 hours
30. The YaYaYa’s • 21 hours
31. Bookshelves of Doom • 25 hours
32. Libri Dilectio • 22 hours
33. A Random Hodgepodge of Bookishness • 23.25 hours
34. Amanda Pearl’s Books • 20 hours
35. The Purpled One • 47.75 hours

Many bloggers also connected their personal readathons with a cause. As I know it now, here’s a list of Blogging for The Greater Good:

• MotherReader • $80 to Donors Choose
  
• So Many Books • 50 Euros to Barnardos
• Chance Encounter • $145 dollars and 5 bags of dog/cat food to Animal Resource Foundation
• Joy’s Book Blog • $60 to Joplin Schools Tornado Relief Fund
• Babylon Reader • $100 for Birthday Wishes (birthday parties for children in shelters)
• Library Book Nook • $51 to medical expenses for library aide
• Confessions of a Bibliovore • $55 dollars to Make Way for Books
• RovingFiddlehead KidLit • $118 for Room to Read
• Two Canadian Readers • $75 to UNICEF
• Boys Rule, Boys Read! • donations to Charlotte Mecklenburg Library
• Just Deb • $48 to Slave Lake Library

I know that I missed some other participants along the way and am happy to accept corrections or additions to this list. Toss them in the comments. Thanks to all of the bloggers who mentioned, tweeted about, and otherwise promoted the 48 Hour Book Challenge. We would never have had such a fantastic turnout without your help. Thanks to the bloggers who supported a cause — and supported each other in raising money. Thanks to the authors, bloggers, and publishers who donated prizes. And of course, thanks to all of you who participated and made this such a wonderful event!

You made it! On this Finish Line post, leave the direct link to your final summary page, which should include: the amount of time spent on the challenge, books read, amount collected for charity, and which charity it will benefit.

I am donating one dollar to my designated Donors Choose school for everyone who finishes the challenge, which means to me that you signed in as a participant, read/blogged some books, and signed in at the Finish Line. So perhaps that little extra incentive can get folks to record their time and complete the 48HBC all official-like. Given different starting times over the weekend and time zones, the end is set at Monday, June 6th, at 7:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. All final summary posts should be up by then. That said, sometimes there are folks who need some nudging, so I won’t announce any winners until after noon on Monday, June 6th.

Thanks again to everyone who participated and supported and promoted the 48 Hour Book Challenge! Read on!

With a bit of weekend still before me, I was able to give twenty-seven hours to the challenge and read seven books. While there were some books I didn’t love, there was nothing I hated either. I pulled together a decent variety of styles and reading levels, though this year I did go for longer books. Which was fine. I also didn’t reduce my to-be-read pile by much since I felt the need to bring home completely different books from the library. Oh, well.

I did like focusing on books that I had heard a lot about, so that I felt less compelled to write reviews and could focus on reactions. Being sleep-deprived has never aided my reviewing — I always put off the posting part — and framing the posts as thoughts instead was rather freeing. Though sometimes I do need to force myself to stop reading, and start posting. Butt In Chair, as they say.

At this point, I could easily keep going, which is a nice way to end. I will continue with checking in on all the participants over the next ten hours, and will be back with a winner on Monday. Thanks to everyone for playing along again!

Working with the last twelve hours of the challenge — and going over a bit to finish this post — I found myself fading fast. I tried to put in just a bit more reading before bed, but could not get into either of the two books I tried. Deciding that sleep was the answer, and indeed necessary, I slept on the sofa for a lovely five hours.

You see, sleeping on the couch meant that I wasn’t as comfy as in my soft bed, so it wasn’t nearly as difficult to get up while everyone else was asleep to start blogging. With a cup of coffee and a doughnut, I made my way through some of the list of 48HBC participants. I stopped looking at Twitter as I was dangerously close to getting sucked into the whole Wall Street Journal article debate, and I did not have time for a controversy. I still had a few more hours and at least two more books to read.

Feeling like something lighter today, I read both of the Guys Read books — which are among the prizes donated by HarperCollins’ Walden Pond Press. I would have bet money that I’d prefer Guys Read: Funny Business, but the only story I loved in this anthology was the one by Adam Rex, titled “Will.” That one had me laughing enough that my husband finally had to ask about it. It may have been this line from the teacher of a class where everyone keeps discovering their secret power and disappearing: “An essay, in two hundred words or less! Explain what you think will happen to a teacher if all her students keep turning into flipping butterflies! Assume she has only two years’ experience and student loans. Show your work.” I loved the story concept and funny lines throughout. Oh, and this: “When Will’s brother was in the fifth grade he and a couple of friends discovered a magic tree house that could travel through time, and had taken it on all kinds of funny adventures. But in high school they’d lost interest in time travel, and it mostly became a magical place to smoke.” Man, do I love Adam Rex, who also illustrated this title.

Overall, I preferred the newest book in the series, Guys Read: Thriller. Again, the stories read like a Who’s Who of children’s literature, with names like M.T. Anderson, Patrick Carman, Margaret Peterson Haddix, and Walter Dean Myers. It was my Facebook notices that alerted me to contributer Jarrett Krosoczka presenting at the Book Expo America panel with a “Thriller” jacket. Nice one. In this title, the stories were adventures, and yet each very different in style and tone — from a ghost story to a funny film noir piece (can you use that term for literature?) to a more sobering work. The short stories seem an ingenious way to reach boys, one tale at a time, and I’m looking forward to seeing more in this series.

Round 3: seven hours

After a blissful five hours of sleep, I awake at the crack of dawn to take teen to meet the bus for a school trip to New York City. The good news is that I’m up to start the next part of my 48HBC, which I do at 6:00 a.m. with a Egg McMuffin in one hand and coffee close by.

After a half hour of social media time, I drive into the book everyone’s been talking about lately, Okay for Now, by Gary Schmidt. I was mentally prepared not to like it because of all the hype, but it didn’t take long for me to really fall for this book. So much so, in fact, that I’m going to talk about it later. ’Kay? Now, I actually had to split my reading into two parts, as I was scheduled to take my sixth-grade Girl Scouts to Medieval Times. Given that it was over an hour away, this was an event set to take up a nice chunk of my Saturday reading time, but at least the experience itself was more fun than I had thought it would be. I was also able to salvage an hour by listening to the first book of the Spiderwick Chronicles on the ride and then wrapped up Okay for Now when I returned.

Needing an easier read, I hoped to finish my next book in ninety minutes. Smalls Acts of Amazing Courage, by Gloria Whelan, fit the bill in being a shorter book and a quick read. It also was rather blah. Not bad, but rather forgettable. For me, it was more notable for filling out some of the back story of those British-kids-who-grew-up-in-India stories, like The Little Princess and The Secret Garden. I finished the book with a nice sense of what is was like to be a child and/or teen living in India in 1918, but I didn’t leave the book feeling moved by the characters.

After a brief break for dinner and an attempted evening nap, I gave a little time to blogging and blog-reading. Then with the night stretched out in front of me, and a scheduled pick-up of the teen at midnight, I dove into The Mermaid’s Mirror. To be honest, I picked this title up from the library because the author, Lisa Wolfson, was on my mind more than the book itself. I didn’t know her, but knew of her through other Young Adult authors, and her recent death from cancer was sudden and shocking — made perhaps even more difficult for the promise that she had as a writer, using the name L.K. Madigan. The Mermaid’s Mirror was a book born in her childhood writings and cultivated with the craft of a skilled author. I was riveted by the story of a teenage girl discovering new truths about herself, her family, and the magical world of the sea. A beautiful book, especially enchanting for those of us who are drawn to the ocean waves.

After this book, it was time to share in the stories of my teen’s big city adventure, and a little blogging before bed. Over the period of twenty-four hours, I spent ten hours reading and two hours blogging or networking.

Round 2: twelve hours

Last year, I was able to divide my time very neatly into twelve-hour chunks. Less so this year, with a fairly large and involved event gulping up a big part of my potential reading time smack in the middle of my time period. We’ll get to that a bit later.

I started my official time at 1:30 p.m. on Friday, after a trip to the library for one audiobook left me with a completely different stack of books to read than I had lined up at home. I just kept seeing these books that had great reviews but that I hadn’t read and changed my reading to knock out some of these titles. This is why I don’t spend a lot of effort planning ahead.

I did stick with my original plan to first tackle the new buzz book for middle-grade, Lisa McMann’s The Unwanteds, which I read slowly and with interruptions, meaning I finished it in four hours. My quickest summary is that is was like Harry Potter meets The Lightning Thief meets The Hunger Games. It certainly has all the elements of a big book, and I enjoyed reading it very much. And yet, I didn’t have the feeling that I was reading the Next Big Thing — partially because I could so easily link the elements to these other successful books. Magic-making and school setting. Feeling different and battle preparation. Grim world and death sentences. Combine them all, and does it make the perfect buzz book or will it fall flat with readers? It certainly remains to be seen, and especially with the target audience of upper middle grade, who may not come into the title as jaded as this oldish mom. More on it later, I hope. Love this new cover!

I put in an hour of social media time and then jumped into book two of my challenge, Bitter Melon, by Cara Chow. What a great book to read after the whole Tiger Mother online debate! I haven’t gotten my hands on Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother — still on the hold list — but I can see how this young adult title shows the road to success from another angle. I liked the character’s growth in how she addressed and accepted her mother’s rigidity in the framework of cultural norms before struggling against those choices and her own mother’s harshness. I would have felt less respect for the book if the message had been the superiority of American focus on passion and happiness over an Asian value on achievement and honor. The particular mother-daughter relationship allows the author to show those differences, and also allow our protagonist to rebel against her mother’s abuse of power. I did have a little irritation of the book being set in 1989, which seemed more a device to convey the author’s experience than to be as relatable to teens today. Still, highly recommended.

In any case, I finished this book in three hours, and went to bed with eight of the first twelve hours spent on 48HBC. I also went to bed with an impending 5:30 a.m. wake-up call to take my teen in for her school field trip. Annoying hour to be awake on a Saturday, but a good thing for my reading.

Round 1: eight hours

Okay, it’s go time, people. Review the rules. No, really. Because while they aren’t complicated, they do set the guidelines for the challenge. Keep your eye on the prize, whether it be the exciting list of books or charitable donations for your readathon or reaching your personal goal. Make sure you have plenty of snacks, caffeine, and good books. Put in a movie marathon for the kids — even if that’s not usually your thing — because this time it’s about you.

When you start your 48 hours, sign in with Mr. Linky below. Keep track of your time — which includes reading, blogging, and some connecting (for every five hours reading/reviewing you can take one hour of blog reading, tweeting, and general bookish socializing). To keep the Starting Line post at the top of my blog, I won’t publish my personal posts until sometime Saturday morning.

On Sunday, I’ll have a Finish Line post where you can leave the link to your final summary, which should include the amount of time spent on the challenge. Feel free to round to the quarter hour. If you’ll be connecting your reading time to a charity, please say so in the comments. I’ll be giving a dollar per finisher to a Donors Choose literacy project, as another incentive to sign out on the Finish Line post.

Have fun, read well.

While Thoreau went to the woods because he wanted to live deliberately, I went to Book Expo America to line my prize coffers. So kind of the same thing.

Naw, I really enjoyed BEA and the Book Blogger Convention and hope to teach my readers how to work that floor like a MotherReader. But it’s true that I did have a big goal in collecting books for prizes for this 48 Hour Book Challenge. I want to make it clear that if I’m giving a book away, it is indeed my only copy. I didn’t get “extras” for these prizes. So will I give away my signed copy of The Unwanteds by Lisa McMann? Umm, I’m not sure yet. But I will give away these signed titles:

• Goliath, by Scott Westerfield (ARC)
• The Scorpio Races, by Maggie Stiefvater (ARC)
• Cold Kiss, by Amy Garvey (ARC)
• Shut Out, by Kody Keplinger (ARC)
• Legend, by Marie Lu (ARC)
• The Iron Queen, by Julie Kagawa (PB)
• Will Grayson, Will Grayson, by John Green and David Levithan (HB)
• The Daughters Take the Stage, by Joanna Philbin (HB)
• Kingdom Keepers IV: Power Play, by Ridley Pearson (HB)
• Bright Young Things, by Anna Godbersen (HB)

I have just a few unsigned ARCs that I hear may be of interest, and would be happy to include a few more high-demand ARCs as donations to the 48HBC:

• Dark Eden, by Patrick Carman
• The Jewel of the Kalderash, by Marie Rutkoski

And that’s it for galleys. It was true what they said about them being harder to find than in the past. But if you’ve got ’em and can spare ’em, I’ll take them for the 48HBC. Contact me at MotherReader AT gmail DOT com.

I am happy to have author-donated books that will be sent to randomly selected participants, because not everyone can aim for forty-eight hours of reading — though it sure is fun to try. Some lucky readers will win personalized, signed copies of:

• The Latte Rebellion, by Sarah Stevenson
• Scars, by Cheryl Rainfield
• I Fooled You: Ten Stories of Tricks, Jokes and Switcheroos (PB anthology), signed by Carmela Martino
• Dragon Speaker: The Last Dragon, by Cheryl Rainfield
• Little Chicken’s Big Day, by Katie Davis

So excellent! I also have donated books for the winner prize packages from HarperCollins’ Walden Pond Press:

• The Billionaire’s Curse, by Richard Newsome (PB)
• The Emerald Casket, by Richard Newsome (HB)
• Juniper Berry, by M.P. Kozlowsky (signed bookplate) (HB)
• Guys Read: Funny Business, edited by Jon Scieszka (signed bookplate) (PB)
• Guys Read: Thriller, edited by Jon Scieszka (ARC, Sept 2011 release)

I’m pulling some new teen titles from my not-going-to-review shelf — mostly from Random House and with thanks to them — including:

• Rotters, by Daniel Kraus (HB)
• Flip, by Martyn Bedford (HB)
• Exposed, by Kimberly Marcus (HB)
• Kiss of Death, by Lauren Henderson (HB)
• Faerie Winter, by Janni Lee Simner (HB)

Prize packages will include little fun things like notecards, booklights, Where the Wild Things Are ornaments and pencils, spy pens, and whatever else I — or you — can contribute. If you would like to donate prizes — signed books, cool swag, illustrator sketches, crafty ventures, etc. — there is still time to contact me at MotherReader AT gmail DOT com.

TEN DAYS, PEOPLE! Though I guess it depends on how you count the days. Like if you include today or if you're going by the twenty-four hour day thing or the more approximate days-of-the-week count. In any case, I know that the assessment is much closer than the Rapture guy. And I won't blame my math. It is definitely happening on June 3rd. You know, unless you decide to make Saturday, June 4th the beginning of your 48 hour period - which you can set within the June 3-5th weekend - in which case it starts on June 4th for you. And then there are time zones to consider...

Nevertheless. So with ten-ish days to go, where are we? Um, you tell me. Are you signing up? Getting your to-be-read pile in order? Letting your blog readers know? Great! There is still plenty of time to sign-up, review the rules, get ready, and publicize. Tomorrow, I'm heading to Book Expo America hoping to pick up some lovely signed books for our winners. I'd be delighted to take donations for other prizes as well. Past prizes have included original sketches from Mo Willems and Matthew Holm, signed and sketched-in books from Adam Rex, loads of signed books, t-shirts from Threadless, artistic blank journals, jewelry, gift cards, notecards, booklights, and more. Good stuff. If you’d like to contribute to the prizes this year, shoot me an email at MotherReader AT gmail DOT com.

Remember that you can connect the 48HBC to charitable causes as you wish to do so. I’ll be supporting book and literacy projects through Donors Choose, a great resource that connects teachers in need of supplies to donors with funds to give, and as an incentive to sign out on the official finish line post, I plan to donate $1 per finishing 48HBC participant to this DC school. Other participants can contribute to this cause and even this school as well, or to something else. Your readathon can be based on sponsors, comments, books read, or something else entirely. You can also choose not to participate in this aspect of the 48 Hour Book Challenge, though you may find a way to support others’ efforts

If you haven't done so yet, please sign up and block the dates on your calendar. If you have questions, check the FAQ's first, and then ask here if need be. I'll answer one question right now, and that is that you do NOT have to expect or in any way plan on reading the entire 48 hours to participate. Seriously. The challenge is to use this window of time to read as much as you want - and then a little bit more - along with your book blogging friends.

It was to be another TeenReader Tuesday, but the sneaky girl got past me without writing her review. We did chat about the book with our usual banter, and I can say that the phrase, “Oh I’m sorry, but it seems I got a little Christian fiction on you,” was uttered. So that’s something to look forward to for next week.

Instead it will be a day to touch base on a few KidLitosphere topics. First off, the 48 Hour Book Challenge! Thanks to everyone who has helped in promoting this community event. Keep it up! Sign-ups are rolling in and it will only get bigger and better. While the challenge encourages you to block off a two-day time period, don’t feel that you have to dedicate that much effort to participate. Eligibility for prizes is set at twelve hours. Twelve. Certainly you want to set aside at least twelve hours for reading on a lovely June day, right? And besides prizes there are charities involved, like this school I’m supporting through Donors Choose. Come play along.

Speaking of charities, there is another school that needs your help. Ballou Senior High School in Washington, D.C., will be the recipient of this year’s Guys Lit Wire Book Fair. At the blog, you’ll find a link to the wish list at Powell’s Books where you can purchase a title and have it sent to the needy library in our nation’s capitol. I’m excited to send the students these Random House titles:

The Rivalry, by John Feinstein (mystery at the Army-Navy game)
The Coming of the Dragon, by Rebecca Barnhouse (Beowulf-inspired, with dragons!)
Efrain’s Secret, by Sofia Quintero (senior dreams of escaping the Bronx)
We Were Here, by Matt De La Peña (running away, self-discovery, something dark)
I Will Save You, by Matt De La Peña (ditto?)
Trash, by Andy Mulligan (not-so-distant future, in unnamed Third World country)

Third thing. Um, I’m not sure I had a third thing, but it seems like there should be one. Let’s say BookExpo America is the third thing. I’m going. Are you? I’ll be flying in Wednesday morning and hightailing it to the book signings in the morning — which are epic! — and then I’ll take in the BEA Middle-Grade Editors Buzz from 2:00–3:30 p.m. Do not plan to engage me in conversation before that afternoon unless you are signing a book, giving me a book that is signed, or booking me for signing sessions. Yeah, I don’t know what the last one means either, but you get the picture that I’ll be very busy collecting prizes for the 48 Hour Book Challenge. But come Thursday, I’m all networking and chatting it up. I’ll be at the KidLit Drink Night and am hoping to pull together a little KidLit lunch corner on Thursday. We’ll trade ARCs like baseball cards and lament the length of the Mo Willems line. It’ll be fun.

Do I need to have a blog to participate?
Pretty much. But if you set one up just for this challenge, you wouldn’t be the first to do so. You might find that the 48HBC kicks off a new hobby for you.

Do you have to register with Mr. Linky before you can use it?
No, you only have to register with the Mr. Linky site if you are hosting this type of listing on your blog. Since you will simply be signing in on my blog with the Mr. Linky I’ve set up, you’ll be fine.

Can I count time reading to my child? Can my kids join in?
You can certainly count time reading aloud to your child — or to anyone, for that matter — as long as you’re using chapter books. Kids can always play along for the fun of it, but no prizes are offered. However, that doesn’t mean that you couldn’t give your own prize to your kid. Why not?

How does this reading for charity thing work?
Any way you want. I’ve been reluctant to assign a specific method or charity, because I want to allow bloggers the freedom to choose — including whether they want to participate in this aspect of the 48HBC. You can donate a set amount per hour you read and even seek sponsors. You could donate based on the number of comments or books read or the total number of 48HBC finishers or something else I’m not thinking of. My default charity is Donors Choose, because you can select a particular book-related project for your own state. You are welcome to join me in supporting through that organization, or work on funding for another.

How can I contact you to donate prizes?
Write me at MotherReader AT gmail DOT com and let me know what you’d like to donate. I usually pull together a bunch of things — books, jewelry, notecards, T-shirts, etc. — to make prize packages for the winners. I also like to have a few authors who’d be willing to send a personalized, signed book to a blogger for a few randomly selected “door prizes.” I’ll also take critiques, illustrator art/sketches/doodles, an offer to name a character in a book after a winner, or an eReader. A girl can dream.

Where are bloggers putting their small kids while doing all this reading?
One word: cages.

Yup, it’s time to officially announce the Sixth Annual 48 Hour Book Challenge — that weekend extravaganza that lets you say, “Back off, I’m reading.” Sign up in the comments today, and talk it up. It’s go time!

1. The weekend is June 3–5, 2011. Read and blog for any 48-hour period within the Friday-to-Monday-morning window. Start no sooner than 7:00 a.m. on Friday the third and end no later than 7:00 a.m. Monday the sixth. So, go from 7:00 p.m. Friday to 7:00 p.m. on Sunday... or maybe 7:00 a.m. Saturday to 7:00 a.m. Monday works better for you. But once begun, the 48 hours do need to be in a row. That said, during that 48-hour period you may still have gaps of time in which you can’t read, and that’s fine. (In fact this weekend, I’ll have a huge gap as I take the Girl Scouts to a Medieval Times dinner on Saturday.)
   
2. The books should be middle-grade, young adult, or adult books. If you are generally a picture book blogger, consider this a good time to get caught up on all those wonderful books you’ve been hearing about. Graphic novels can be included in the reading. One audiobook can also be included in your time and book total — helpful if you have somewhere to drive to or need to prepare dinner, etc.
   
3. The top three winners will be based only on time commitment, not number of books. So if you are heading into the 30+ hours club or 40+ hours club, track your time carefully. International winners may be given gift cards instead of books due to mailing costs, unless a U.S. address is provided.
   
4. It’s your call as to how much you want to put into it. If you want to skip sleep and showers to do this — and some people do — go for it. If you want to be a bit more laid back, fine. But you have to put something into it or it’s not a challenge. Twelve hours is the benchmark for winning prizes.
   
5. The length of the reviews or notes written in your blog are not an issue. You can write a sentence, a paragraph, or a full-length review. Up to you. The time spent reviewing counts in your total time.
   
6. You can include some amount of time reading other participant’s blogs, commenting on participating blogs and Facebook pages, and Twittering about your progress (remember the #48hbc tag!). For every five hours, you can add one hour of networking. This time counts in your total time.
   
7. On your blog, state when you are starting the challenge with a specific entry on that day and leave the link to that post at the Starting Line post at MotherReader on June 3rd (via the trusty Mr. Linky). And please link to the contest on your post.
   
8. When you finish, write a final summary that clearly indicates hours — including partial hours — you spent reading/reviewing/networking, the number of books read, and any other comments you want to make on the experience. It needs to be posted no later than noon EST on Monday, June 6th. Also, check in at the Finish Line post on MotherReader that will be posted Sunday and please link to that post from your final summary post.

Two years ago we began to connect the 48HBC to charitable causes, and folks were able to connect their personal readathon to a Greater Good of their choice. While you may continue to select your own charity, I’ll suggest supporting book and literacy projects through Donors Choose, a great resource that connects teachers in need of supplies to donors with funds to give. As an incentive to sign out on the official finish line post, I plan to donate $1 per finishing 48HBC participant to this DC school. Other participants can contribute to this cause and even this school as well, or to something else. Your readathon can be based on sponsors, comments, books read, or something else entirely. You can also choose not to participate in this aspect of the 48 Hour Book Challenge, though you may find a way to support others’ efforts by leaving comments (if that’s what is being tallied).

I’m always looking for donations for winners’ prize packages and other “door prizes” to be awarded to participants selected at random. Past prizes have included original sketches from Mo Willems and Matthew Holm, signed and sketched books from Adam Rex, loads of signed books, t-shirts from Threadless, artistic blank journals, jewelry, gift cards, notecards, and more. Good stuff. If you’d like to contribute to the prizes this year, shoot me an email at MotherReader AT gmail DOT com.

Sign up now in the comments and block of the dates on your calendar. Questions can also go in the comments, and I will respond in the comments and add to FAQ if needed. Which means, you might check there first. Talk this up, people! I’m just one blogger, one lone voice, making an announcement on the biggest news week of the year. I could use some promotion help.

Today might have been TeenReader Tuesday, but the teen’s been in endless rehearsals for the high school play and hasn’t had time to read anything but her school assignment, A Tale of Two Cities. Asked to summarize her review of that book so far, she was able to do so with two words:

Hate. It.

Moving on, I’m still in the pre-announcement phase of the 48 Hour Book Challenge, coming the weekend of June 3rd. Why so coy? Well, the official announcement will come after I’ve had a chance to review the rules from last year to make any needed updates or changes. And last week? Spring Break? So not the week to get that done.

But I do have some donated prizes lined up, ready to announce, and am very excited about them. These will most likely be ones that are given to randomly selected participants, because not everyone can aim for forty-eight hours of reading — though it sure is fun to try. Some lucky readers will win signed copies of:

The Latte Rebellion, by Sarah Stevenson
Scars, by Cheryl Rainfield
Dragon Speaker: The Last Dragon, by Cheryl Rainfield
Little Chicken’s Big Day, by Katie Davis

So excellent! I also have donated books for the winner prize packages from HarperCollins’ Walden Pond Press. In fact, I’m opening the box this minute to find...

The Billionaire’s Curse, by Richard Newsome
The Emerald Casket by Richard Newsome
Juniper Berry, by M.P. Kozlowsky (signed bookplate)
Guys Read: Funny Business, edited by Jon Scieszka (signed bookplate)
Guys Read: Thriller, edited by Jon Scieszka (ARC, Sept 2011 release)

And that’s just the beginning, a sampling, a taste of what’s to come. I can already promise some Random House teen titles, like Rotters, Flip, and Exposed. I’m also looking to Book Expo America to line my prize coffers. Of course, if you would like to donate prizes — signed books, illustrator sketches, crafty ventures, etc — contact me at MotherReader AT gmail DOT com.

Perhaps you want to start getting prizes now, instead of say, at the beginning of June. Then check out the Little Chicken’s Big Day Sweepstakes going on week by week starting... well, last week. But there’s plenty more chances to win. For instance, this week offers a signed copy of the book and a baby quilt, handmade by Katie!

While we’re talking prizes — and I did title this blog post with three uses of the word itself — I should mention the ongoing round-up of book giveaways done at Brimful Curiosities and Lori Calabrese’s Fish for Free Book. Wonderful resources for the KidLitosphere.

I’m not sure that Spring Break is the best time to plug a project, but I have been getting questions about this topic. So let’s call this the pre-announcment of the Sixth Annual 48 Hour Book Challenge and officially set the date for the weekend of June 3rd–5th. I will put up the official sign-up post with rules on Monday, May 2nd, but feel free to start spreading the word. In fact, I beg you to share the news. For a refresher on the rules, check out my 48 Hour Book Challenge standard information. Prizes are needed for our winners, so if you are willing to donate signed books, crafty ventures, illustrator sketches, reading paraphernalia, etc., I’d really appreciate it. Email me with those at MotherReader AT gmail DOT com.

Personally, the selected weekend is going to be an issue for me because I have a Girl Scout event right in the middle of it, but I decided that it was better to keep the 48HBC the first weekend of June as a tradition. Plus also, my weekend was completely open last year and I didn’t knock it out of the park anyway, so maybe having a few obligations — or one large obligation — actually helps keep reading focus. If nothing else, it will let you know that you can participate even if you have to block off a large chunk of time during the weekend. Because whatever you’re doing, it is not as crazy as taking twelve sixth graders to a Medieval Times dinner and joust. Right?

A post so nice, I had to do it twice.

On Monday, I had the long wrap-up of the Fifth Annual 48 Hour Book Challenge with challenge winners, prize winners, Twenty Hour club members, and charity contributions. But as I’ve had a few corrections to those charity contributions, and as it was buried at the end of a long post, and as it is a very, very cool thing to highlight, I’m giving that part its own post. And this has nothing to do with the fact that I have to spend most of today wrapping up Girl Scout accounting and functions. Almost nothing.

A prize was given to the person who raised the most money for charity — Jennie of Biblio File, who collected $725.54 for Room to Read! She’ll get a lovely necklace from Hoolala donated in turn by Kristin of Blue Castle. Based on the number of finishers, I’ll be donating $100 to a project at this DC School through Donors Choose.

Many bloggers connected their personal readathons with a cause. As I know it now, here’s a list of Blogging for The Greater Good:

• Biblio File — $725.54 to Room to Read
  
• Blue Castle — $75.25 to a couple adopting a baby boy from Ethiopia
  
• Blog from the Windowsill — $25 to Friends of the Library
  
• Boys Rule! Boys Read! — $80 for the Charlotte Mecklenburg library
  
• Book Clutter — $22 to Love146
  
• Check It Out — $25 to the Fanconi Anemia Research Fund
  
• Cybermac — $12 to a local education fund
  
• Deraps Reads $10 to Donors Choose
  
• Imaginary Dreamer $50 to Donors Choose
  
• Infinite Shelf — $20 to gulf cleanup
  
• Library Chicken — $49 to a local library
  
• Literate Lives — $28 to Welcome Warehouse
  
• Liyanaland — $48 to a local literacy charity
  
• Mama Librarian — $32 to Little Lake Free School
  
• A Moment with Mystee — $48 to the ASPCA
  
• A Patchwork of Books $27.00 to a DC School from Donors Choose
  
• Readers Carousel — $45 to CureSearch
  
• Reading Chick — $44.50 to the International Bird Rescue Center
  
• Reno, the Girl — 14 books to her library
  
• A Room without Books is Empty — $22 to Donors Choose
  
• Situations Where You May Need It — $45 for Alpine Valley School
  
• So Many Books… — 27 Euros to Books for Africa
  
• Two Canadian Readers — $44 to The Literacy Group
  
• Two Canadian Readers — $27.50 to the Central Asia Institute
  

Visit the blogs above for more information about their specific causes. Since I wasn’t always able to determine the amount or exact cause, I am happy to accept corrections or additions to this list.

Thanks to the bloggers who supported a cause — and supported each other in raising money. Also props to all the authors and bloggers who contributed prizes, which gave us something to play for in this community event. One of those prizes, or rather three, are actually special donations of multicultural library collections for schools or other youth-serving organizations — as chosen by the top three winners! Special thanks to Carol Rasco from RIF for making this possible.

Of course, thanks to all of you who participated and made this such a special, amazing, fabulous event! Come back next year!

First, a repeat from the last post with the winners of The Fifth Annual 48 Hour Book Challenge are:

• LiyanaLand!
  Featuring a teen from Singapore
  
• Everyone has a Blue Castle...
  Featuring a librarian from Maryland
  
• The Purpled One
  Featuring a woman who started her blog for the 48HBC
  

Absolutely amazing readers who will have to tell us more about how they stayed awake through all of those reading/blogging hours. And maybe how they kept people — like moms, for instance — from engaging them in hour-long phone conversations. I’ll be in touch with your about the super prize packages!

Now, more prizes! I have books for participants selected with the Random Integer Generator. Participants had to complete twelve hours of reading/blogging/networking to be eligible for prizes. In the order drawn, the winners are:

• Jaimie from Three Cheers for Literacy
  
• Heather from Geeky Reads
  
• Maggi from Mamma Librarian
  
• Tricia from Teens@CPL
  
• Beth from Library Chicken
  

Prize winners, please write me at MotherReader AT gmail DOT com with your address, and the books you’d most be interested in receiving. If you’d like a personalized copy, please note to whom you’d like it signed; I’ll do my best to accommodate. (Choices include: signed copy of The Cardturner, personalized, signed copy of Seaglass Summer, personalized, signed copy of Operation Yes, personlized, signed copy of The Secrets of the Cheese Syndicate; a personalized, signed book selection from Melissa Wiley’s Little House books and — in an ironic turn for MotherReader — author/illustrator signed copy of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.)

For the Fifth Annual 48 Hour Book Challenge we had almost a hundred people complete the challenge with fifty-five blogs listing totals of twenty hours or more. Here in order of their finish line sign-in are:

48 Hour Book Challenge Twenty Hours Club

1. MotherReader 28.5 hours
   
2. Over the Moon and Sun 41.5 hours
   
3. The Fourth Musketeer 22.5 hours
   
4. Lessons from the Tortoise 20 hours
   
5. Books Like Breathing 43.5 hours
   
6. Blue Castle 48 hours
   
7. Reading Chick 22.25 hours
   
8. A Patchwork of Books 26.5 hours
   
9. The Dimly Seen 23.25 hours
   
10. Teens@CPL 24 hours
    
11. Book Nut 22.75 hours
    
12. A Moment With Mystee 43.5 hours
    
13. BookLoss 26.5 hours
    
14. Bibliovore 24.5 hours
    
15. Madigan Reads 31 hours
    
16. The Literary Wife 22 hours
    
17. A Room Without Books Is Empty 22 hours
    
18. House of Crawford 22 hours
    
19. Book Clutter 22 hours
    
20. The Lost Entwife 26 hours
    
21. Blog from the Windowsill 27.75 hours
    
22. What We Read 26.5 hours
    
23. Situations Where You May Need It 30 hours
    
24. Two Canadian Readers 22 hours
    
25. So Many Books... 27 hours
    
26. Reading with Tequila 23.75
    
27. Abby the Librarian 28.75 hours
    
28. Charlotte’s Library 25 hours
    
29. (LiyanaLand! 48 hours
    
30. Reading and Writing from Red Stick 22 hours
    
31. The Book Maven 23.5 hours
    
32. Becky’s Book Reviews 25 hours
    
33. Ms. Martin Teaches Media 26 hours
    
34. My Favoritest 22 hours
    
35. Stiletto Storytime 21.25 hours
    
36. The Purpled One 48 hours
    
37. Nomad Librarian 24 hours
    
38. Musings of a Book Addict 24.5 hours
    
39. Lost in the Library 23.5 hours
    
40. Biblio File 33 hours
    
41. Literate Lives 20 hours
    
42. Lucy Was Robbed 20 hours
    
43. The Infinite Shelf 22 hours
    
44. Mama Librarian 30.5 hours
    
45. Darkly Reading 21.5 hours
    
46. Sonderbooks 26.75 hours
    
47. Library Chicken 31 hours
    
48. BookMoot 25.5 hours
    
49. Trisha at The YA YA YAs 20.5
    
50. Bookgazing 21.75
    
51. Karen at GHHS Library 28 hours
    
52. Geeky Blogger’s Book Blog 21.25 hours
    
53. The Neverending Shelf 22.5 hours
    
54. I’d So Rather Be Reading 24 hours
    
55. One Librarian’s Book Reviews 24.25 hours
    

Many bloggers also connected their personal readathons with a cause. As I know it now, here’s a list of Blogging for The Greater Good:

• Biblio File — $725.54 to Room to Read
  
• Blue Castle — $75.25 to a couple adopting a baby boy from Ethiopia.
  
• Blog from the Windowsill — $25 to Friends of the Library
  
• Boys Rule! Boys Read — $80 for Charlotte Mecklenburg library
  
• Book Clutter — $22 to Love146
  
• Check It Out — $25 to Fanconi Anemia Research fund
  
• Cybermac — $12 to a local education fund
  
• Deraps Reads $10 to Donors Choose
  
• Imaginary Dreamer $50 to Donors Choose
  
• Infinite Shelf — $20 to gulf clean-up
  
• Library Chicken — $49 to local library
  
• Literate Lives — $28 to Welcome Warehouse
  
• Liyanaland — $48 to local literacy charity
  
• Mama Librarian — $32 to Little Lake Free School
  
• A Moment with Mystee — $48 to ASPCA
  
• A Patchwork of Books $27.00 to DC School from Donors choose
  
• Readers Carousel — $45 CureSearch
  
• Reading Chick — $44.50 International Bird Rescue Center
  
• Reno, the Girl — 14 books to her library
  
• A Room without Books is Empty — $22 to Donors Choose
  
• Situations Where You May Need It — $45 for Alpine Valley School
  
• So Many Books… — 27 Euros to Books for Africa
  
• Two Canadian Readers — $44 to Literacy Group
  
• Two Canadian Readers — $27.50 to Central Asia Institute
  

Visit the blogs above for more information about their specific causes. Since I wasn’t always able to determine the amount or exact cause, I am happy to accept corrections or additions to this list.

Though I hadn’t announced this, we are able to give a prize to the person who raised the most money for charity — which is Jennie of Biblio File! She’ll get a lovely necklace from Hoolala. Based on the number of finishers who have signed out and those I know to have done the challenge but not yet signed out, I’ll be donating $100 to a project at this DC School through Donors Choose.

Thanks to all the authors and bloggers who contributed prizes. Special thanks go to Carol Rasco from RIF, who will be donating multicultural library collections for schools or other youth-serving organizations — as chosen by the top three winners! Another special thanks to Kristen from Blue Castle, who donated the most beautiful necklaces from Hoolala and coin purses made from fabrics used in the Shakespeare Theatre plays in DC. Thanks to all of the bloggers who mentioned, tweeted about, and otherwise promoted the 48 Hour Book Challenge. We would never have had such a fantastic turnout without your help. Thanks to the bloggers who supported a cause — and supported each other in raising money. Of course, thanks to all of you who participated and made this such a special, amazing, fabulous event! I couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t do it without you all!

Even though the contest is called the 48 Hour Book Challenge, it is hard for me to conceive of people reading for the entire time. It pretty much blows my mind! This year three people read and blogged for the entire forty-eight hours! No breaks that didn’t come with an audiobook soundtrack and no sleep. Crazyness.

The winners of The Fifth Annual 48 Hour Book Challenge are:

• LiyanaLand!
  Featuring a teen from Singapore
  
• Everyone has a Blue Castle...
  Featuring a librarian from Maryland
  
• The Purpled One
  Featuring a woman who started her blog for the 48HBC
  

Absolutely amazing readers who will have to tell us more about how they stayed awake through all of those reading/blogging hours. And maybe how they kept people — like moms for instance — from engaging them in hour-long phone conversations.

Later today, I’ll have a second post with all the members of the Twenty Hours Club, the donations collected, and random prizes for players. Congratulations to this year’s remarkable winners!

You made it! On this Finish Line post, leave the direct link to your final summary page, which should include: the amount of time spent on the challenge, books read, amount collected for charity, and which charity it will benefit.

I decided to donate one dollar to my designated Donors Choose school for everyone who finishes the challenge, which means to me that you signed in as a participant, read/blogged some books, and signed in at the Finish Line. So perhaps that little extra incentive can get folks to record their time and complete the 48HBC all official-like. Given different starting times over the weekend and time zones, the end is set at Monday, June 7th, at 7:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. All final summary posts should be up by then. That said, sometimes there are folks who need some nudging, so I won’t announce any winners until after noon on Monday, June 7th.

I decided not to have a separate kid sign-in, but if you have a child who put in challenge hours this weekend, let me know in the comments because I will have some prizes to send out.

Thanks again to everyone who participated and supported and promoted the 48 Hour Book Challenge! Read on!

So I read eight books and spent twenty-eight and a half hours on the challenge. Certainly good, but not as much as I’d hoped for given how wide open my weekend was. In some ways the freedom was part of the problem, because it didn’t give me real mental breaks from reading or allow me to process the books. Which, in turn, led to my sad lack of reviews.

I tend to write my posts after going through them in my head while I’m doing other things, rather than sitting myself down in front of the computer and drafting the full version. But for the 48HBC, I can’t really count time showering and thinking about the book as real blogging time. It doesn’t seem right. Yet that is as much my process as it is for other people to take notes and craft them into a review.

I wanted to write about the books I read, because they were all great! Seriously, a wonderful run of books. But I think I’ll have to do the reviews throughout the week, as I’ll have time and mental space to give each the attention it deserves.

Before I began, I had a completely different stack of books I’d planned to tackle, mostly Young Adult titles. But as I read the first book about an eleven year old, it occurred to me that I didn’t want to enter the angst and turmoil and often-darkness of YA. Not now. Not for this weekend. As I realized that I had three books that were about eleven year olds, I decided to make that fifth/sixth-grade age my theme. I switched out the stack I had so carefully selected for a set of completely different books. It worked for me, in that I enjoyed the reading level and ended up loving all of the books. A pretty wonderful experience to have had so many awesome books in a row. Since I can’t leave you without any reaction, here are my overall thoughts on each:

Seaglass Summer, by Anjali Banerjee (2010)
Loved the strong characters, the soothing picture of the island life, and the sensitive handling of death — and life. Beautifully done.

The Dancing Pancake, by Eileen Spinelli (2010)
Another book with a sensitive handling of a difficult topic — separation — and realistic, accessible characters. My personal favorite is the cousin, for the funny and dead-on dialogue of a lively four-year-old boy. Delightful.

Turtle in Paradise, by Jennifer L. Holm (2010)
Again, loved the characters. Loved the setting. Loved the humor and the conflict. Loved the few pages of history at the back that provided context. Wonderful.

Smells Like Dog, by Suzanne Selfors (2010)
This was a different book than I’d expected, but I was quickly captured by the humor and adventure. I enjoyed the ride.

How I, Nicky Flynn, Finally Get a Life (and a Dog), by Art Corriveau (2010)
Well written boy-and-his-dog story, with a little mystery, a little pre-teen angst, and a lot of nicely placed humor. Almost makes me want a dog.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume (1970)
I choose this because of my eleven-twelve year old theme, wondering if this older book still held the wonders of this age. Yup. Lives up to my memory of it.

Also Known as Harper, by Ann Haywood Leal (2009)
Sadder than I was expecting somehow, but not without hope contained within the story and the characters themselves. Glad I found it again.

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, by Tom Angleberger (2010)
Funny and so real in its portrayal of the dynamics of middle school. Just excellent. And hello? A shoutout to the Kidlitosphere in the acknowledgements! How cool!

Last bit of time on the clock, it’s the overnight shift, and I’m out of Diet Coke. We’ll see how this goes.

8:00 p.m. – 9:15 p.m.	Read The Strange Case of Origami Yoda. Guys, why didn’t anyone tell me that the Kidlitosphere is thanked in the acknowledgements? Awesome!
9:15 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.	Brief tweeting, then blog post updating.
9:30 p.m. – 9:45 p.m.	Heading to the school early to pick up teen because the parking there sucks. Decide I’m going to bring my notebook — actual spiral notebook — to see if I can draft some posts while I wait, because I’ve written nothing so far. Nothing!
9:45 p.m. – 10:15 p.m.	Yeah, that didn’t work. But I did bring a back-up book to read in the car.
10:15 p.m. – 10:45 p.m.	Heard about the dance on the drive home, and sat through the retelling at home. She had fun, though the boys didn’t dance with the girls. Typical.
10:45 p.m. – 11:00 p.m.	Post updating.
11:00 p.m. – 12:00 mid.	Social Media time.
12:00 mid. – 1:00 a.m.	Writing reviews. Kind of. Not going well.
1:00 a.m. – 2:00 a.m.	Dozing on the couch.
2:00 a.m. – 3:00 a.m.	Writing final summary.
3:00 a.m. – 4:15 a.m.	Last Social Media time, checking in on the last thirty blogs.
4:15 a.m. – 8:00 a.m.	Sleeping away the last hours of my time, I’m guessing quite happily.

Six and a half hours of the twelve-hour period.