From Judy Newman:
It wasn’t very hard to get me reading over the summer. I loved reading anyway, and if you added a competition on top of that, I was there.
When I was in seventh grade, the Newton Free Library (our local public library) hosted a competition to see who could read the most books over the summer. I needed to win! I buried myself in book after book and (as I recall it) blew past the next kid in the number of books I read.After devouring the handful of books on my “to read” list, I biked over to the library and roamed the stacks for more. Sometimes it’s fun to read with no idea what you’re going to get—and some books pleasantly surprised me! Between those and the old favorites I reread, I definitely had a summer filled with amazing stories.
I did not have to read as many books as I did (165!) in order to win. But after I was comfortably in the lead, I competed with myself to make the margin as big as possible.
Some kids might think a summer stuck in the library would be the worst, but I loved it! And it sure beat the social experiment I forced on myself the next summer…
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