In the library’s quest to have fun in the summer rewarding readers for doing what they do, i.e., read, it has become easier than ever to win a prize. The traditional reading challenge card is a Bingo card, completed in the usual way (down, across, diagonally). While we still have a card for adults that looks like a Bingo card (five rows across and five columns top to bottom), we don’t have to complete the card in the Bingo pattern anymore. We simply read five books and check off the categories that those five books fulfilled. Then we turn it into the library.
Even easier, we can simply turn in a list of the five books we’ve read from June to August 11, along with the category each book fulfills, and become eligible for a prize. If we’ve read ten books that can be identified as belonging to ten different categories on the card, we can claim two prizes. Any more than that, and our prize is simply the fun we had reading.
For those who don’t even want to hassle with locating a card or facsimile, here’s the list of Bingo categories. Remember, five books that fit into five of these categories or ten books that fit into ten of these categories equals one or two prizes. We have three weeks to go. For the ambitious or those skilled at finding short books, you’ve got lots of time to start now and win a prize. Most books belong to multiple categories. Choose wisely.
Column One: A memoir or biography; a book that makes you happy; a book set in a warm country. Note: This is fluid and open to interpretation, and thus where you can possibly squeeze in something you’re having trouble categorizing; non-fiction book; first time author. Note: I can see this last category being open to interpretation also. If you read Louise Penny’s very first published book, she was a new author at that time. I admit this is a push, but again – you are unlikely to ever be challenged since there is a certain logic to it, and librarians are busy people.
Column Two: An author you haven’t read before; a book that makes you think; a book with an animal in it; a funny book; a book made into a TV show or movie. Note: I read – as regular readers already know – “Tepper Isn’t Going Out” by Calvin Trillin. If I were to use this book for summer reading, I would have a good time thinking which of these categories to put it in. It won’t fit into the last one, but it would fit clearly into any of the first four. It’s great to have read a couple flexible books like this.
Column Three: A book from the Teen or Tween section; a downloaded e-book; re-read your all-time favorite book; a book set in a country you’d like to visit; and a book about history. Note: I’ll be squeezing in a re-reading of my all-time favorite book before August 21 as soon as I pick which one that is.
Column Four: A classic; a book about an historical figure; a mystery set in another century; Note: “Classic” is yet another of those fluid terms. Some people decide it’s anything they read in school. Others think it’s anything they quit reading in the middle. Yet more people are pretty sure it’s anything written before they were born. You pick! I would also suggest that a book about an historical figure could conceivably fall under the fog of what’s real and what isn’t. It doesn’t say “an historical figure who actually existed” for instance which, once again, allows for some latitude; a book set in a state you’ve lived in; and a book in your favorite genre.
Column Five: A book you picked from a review; a book that made you a better person; a book in a series; a book about something you didn’t know much about; and an audio book. Note: Reading a book you read about in this column or that your book club suggested qualifies as a book from a review.
The take-away from this is that your library wants to you read and have fun reading.
Just drop off your card (which you can pick up at the library) or drop off your list by the August 21 deadline and you’re eligible for a prize or two.
See you at the Library!
(By Roz Weedman for publication in the Frankenmuth News on August 4, 2021.)