I know many of us have worked to gamify our summer reading for many years now. As we have learned, adults love checking off boxes or completing BINGO cards for prizes as much (maybe more) than kids do.
Reading challenges are around all year long, but many people are intimidated by joining the ones that start in January. A year of reading seems like a big commitment to people who haven't read more than a book or two for fun in years. However, when you take the same idea of a challenge and market it as "Summer Reading," many people jump at the chance to give it a try.
Summer is three months. Summer gives people time to be outside and relax-- even if just on a few weekends. Summer holds fun memories of childhood summer reading.
Last week, the New York Times Book Review launched their "Summer Reading Bucket List" (gift link here). They have ten items that are very general and easy to complete. And there is even a box to check for reading a book from the library (with bonus points if you talked to the library worker to get the suggestion).
What I love about this summer reading game is that it easy to complete. They are only challenging you to get to 5 of the 10 options before Fall. It gives some direction, but not too much. Five books seems like a doable number for those who are not regular readers. Pretty much any book is an option. Literally. And they have a way for you to turn in your sheet and be eligible for a prize.
The New York Times has prioritized gathering data from actual readers for a while now. All of those checklists for their "best books" to have people mark if they read a book or want to read a book, etc... This is a grab for user data that I can get behind because they are using it to actively craft their book coverage, to make sure they are covering the books that people actually want to read, not just what the snotty literati think we should read.
This is a huge shift in the NYT Book Review over the last few years and I am here for it. We are in a landscape where most papers have dropped their books coverage, but the NYT is trying to fill that gap. Yes they provide reviews and commentary about the most important literary titles, but as I have been covering here as well, they are also making an effort to cover genre and even backlist titles. They want to help you-- all of you, any kind of reader-- find a book that you will love and get you back into reading.
And bonus because they always support libraries. Yes they added us to their list, but it is more than that. See this post I had last week (with a gift link) for another example.
But here is another important point I want to make today, many libraries still do not offer a summer reading challenge or program for adults. I don't understand it myself. I made sure my library always had summer reading for adults to match the ones we had for children (going back to 2000). They are important both because when parents read with kids, kids do better with their own reading.
But also, Adults need the chance to have fun reading a book, to complete their checklist, and earn a prize. Life is short, things are awful, why are we not offering adults books with a side of joy.
Don't we want our adults coming back to the library again? Don't we want the people who pay the taxes to fund us and come to the polls or board meetings for us when we need their support to feel like we care about them too? Why do we ignore the recreational needs of our adults?
So I am sharing this to help all of you who do NOT have a summer reading program already. Go here and use the NYT Summer Reading Bucket List to make your own to hand out for adults. Summer reading starts this weekend at most libraries. They have all been working on it for months, but you...the library that isn't offering an adult program....you can still do something right now.
And for those of you who already have a summer reading program, this is a great resource to enhance what you are already offering. Maybe you don't have a BINGO card yet? Maybe you have a full program with your themes and lists all set up, but you know that it will be too restrictive for some readers. Here you go.
[Side note, I hate putting restrictions on reading for adults and making them follow our themes. Themes are great to guide those who want to follow, but it should not restrict if people can participate-- adults or kids. We want them to read. We don't want to create more obstacles to stop that. We need to stop being Gate Keepers and start being Gate Openers. Click on this link for more about that.)
And for those of you who are all set and have the perfect, flexible summer reading program set to start for adults in a few days, great, but you can still save this link and use it for Fall Reading or Winter Reading or even next year's planning. It is NOT tied to a specific year or trend or even season. Just change the one that is season specific to whatever season you use this in.
I have posted the graphic from the article below in case you want to just print it out and hand it off to people. If you do this and you have NYT access for your patrons, this bucket list can serve to also advertise your NYT access. I talk to people all the time who have no idea that most of the major newspapers are available at the library, from home even with your card. Make the list available in print and online with a note to remind people of their access available with their library card.
This post is here to get you to think about all the ways you can use this ready made summer reading resource to help your readers have a fun summer-- whether you have it all planned and ready to roll out this weekend or not.
How will you use this list with your readers? If you have summer reading plans you want me to share with my readers, contact me and we can see about a guest post here on the blog.
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