I have challenged my students in grades 3 to 5 to read as many Maryland Black-Eyed Susan (BES) Book Award nominees as they can – and those that read more of the books than I do this year will be recognized at the end of the year (there will be classroom and grade level recognitions as well).

As you can see from the bulletin board display, many students are participating in the challenge. The black centers each represent a student, and they earn a petal for each BES book they read. The Maryland Black-Eyed Susan Book Award is selected by Maryland students in the spring, so all students who participate in this challenge will have the opportunity to vote on their favorite picture book, chapter book, and/or graphic novel, if they have read the required number of books. To learn about the Black-Eyed Susan Book Award, please visit the website here, and for teacher librarian resources, please visit here. As the year progresses, I will post updated pictures of this bulletin board to watch the flowers bloom!

A second challenge for students is to participate in the Reading without Walls challenge from Gene Luen Yang, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.

For more information about the Reading without Walls challenge, visit Gene Luen Yang’s website here .

From the beginning of school through September 30th book circulation for all grade levels was 3779 books, compared to 3304 last year. 400 more books were read this year than last! Whoo hoo! That is cause for celebration!

Reading challenges CAN be a good thing!!