March 5 just so happened to be the half-year mark on my “reading my library” challenge, which I began on September 5, 2006. So we’re about 13.5 years in. So far, it looks like this year will look relatively similar to last year – except that we’re reading a lot more juvenile picture books compared to other types of books/materials.
TOTALS as of March 10, 2019 (13 years and 187 days or 4935 days)
| Category | Items in past 6 months | Items in 2018-2019 | Total Items |
|---|---|---|---|
| Juvenile Picture | 272 | 323 | 2252 |
| Juvenile, Board Books | 14 | 31 | 557 |
| Juvenile, First Readers | 1 | 2 | 78 |
| Juvenile, Chapter | 0 | 0 | 92 |
| Juvenile Fiction | 2 | 4 | 326 |
| Juvenile Nonfiction | 28 | 133 | 441 |
| Teen Fiction | 0 | 3 | 52 |
| Teen Nonfiction | 0 | 6 | 11 |
| Adult Fiction | 9 | 22 | 499 |
| Adult Nonfiction | 16 | 49 | 1018 |
| Audio CD | 142 | 488 | 1563 |
| Juvenile DVD | 6 | 8 | 67 |
| Adult Fiction DVD | 1 | 5 | 113 |
| Adult Nonfiction DVD | 1 | 18 | 64 |
| Periodicals | 2 | 33 | 129 |
| Total | 494 items | 1125 items | 7262 items |
| 2.93 items/day | 2.94 items/day | 1.21 items/day |
We are racing through the children’s picture books, having read 84% of last year’s total in just 6 months! I’m loving having found something that’s working for us for read-aloud time. Juvenile nonfiction intake, on the other hand, has plummeted (only 21% of last year’s total so far this year) as we’ve spent a lot more time in the car, which makes me less likely to want to go INTO the library (and therefore less likely to let the kids pick out their own favorites) – we’ve been doing a lot more just driving through the window to pick up our holds on the next picture books in line.
Grown-up reading seems a bit low so far, but it’s always a little hard to tell actual status on that, since I always have quite a few books going at any given time (I think I have about 10 going as we speak, give or take). Also, especially when it comes to fiction, I tend to go in spurts and fits. I’m guessing I’ll be doing lots more grown-up reading after the new baby comes when I’ll be breastfeeding all the time.