March Challenge: World Book Day
Mar. 30th, 2025 07:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebThe Rebel Badge Club has monthly challenges, which are fun because everyone's working on them at the same time and so you can get plenty of ideas. The challenges don't all interest me, but March's Challenge for World Book Day sounded fun. It's not all about reading but touches on all kinds of aspects of books, which is fun.
There are 28 requirements of which at least six must be completed.
The first thing I learned is that I tend to lose motivation between when I learn about a new challenge and when I'm officially allowed to start it. I appreciate the lead time for planning, but in reality, instead of waiting a few days, I wait a couple of weeks, and then it feels like stress. In the future I'll start whenever I feel like, though I won't post anything until the first day.
Even with only 6 things required, I didn't finish by the end of the month, having done only 5. That's okay; the mantra around there is how badges are self-assessed, so you can do them however you like. And it's all about fun and personal growth, and there's more of that to be squeezed out of this challenge, so I'll keep going. But I'm posting now so I can link from the group's page during the proper month.
I'd already done many of the requirements in the past. Those aren't supposed to count. But there are also plenty of requirements for things I've never done. And there's room to do old things in new ways. And of course any excuse for more charity, even if it's just repeating something that's been done in the past, is good. It's the last day today, so I'll post now, but I plan to do a few extra things as well.
Here are my notes (crazy long, so behind a cut).
1. Dress up as your favorite character and pose with the book they are from. Who is my favorite character? Is it the guy from Blind Waves? I think I'd need a suit? And handcuffs? And to get a burn scar for one side of my face. Or Robin's favorite from that book is the gal--I'd just need a tank top, shorts, and a ponytail.
Better, I think, would be to dress as "a" favorite character, one who would be fun to dress up as. I have enjoyed dressing up as Willy Wonka from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at work and passing out candy to people I see.
I've also dressed as Greta Thunberg from No One is Too Small Too Make a Difference (nonfiction, but still a book) for Halloween. It was a couple costume--my partner was my protest sign. I'd memorized a lot of quotes to say seriously to people, but that's not ideal party behavior!
And just now I realized it might also be fun to dress as Mrs. Pollifax, from, say The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax. I'm old enough now! I'd need a big hat with lots of flowers all over it and some kind of pre-polyester-age old-lady dress and probably high heels, but I'd have to check. Maybe for Halloween this year.
2. Host a party where the food and entertainment are based on a book. A roommate and I once threw a party based on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We made golden tickets to mail out in envelopes decorated like Wonka bars. We made a floor-to-ceiling chocolate pipe (okay, just a tube) from brown construction paper. We labeled our closed bedroom doors as rooms from the factory. And when people arrived, invariably it wasn't exactly at the start time. So one of us would open the door and say how the invitation clearly said a certain time and it was now another time. "Good day!" and close the door. Then the other one of us would open the side door, "Psst! Come on in!" And when they did, the first person would say, "Ah there you are, glad you could make it!"
We learned there is such a thing as too much chocolate. And also, watch the movie before eating so that the candy scenes are mouth-watering instead of groan-inducing!
Right now my house is not good for parties. I have not even tried to think of a book I like that could inspire a party in a public place.
3. Write a review of a book you love and post it somewhere publicly. I've posted many reviews on this blog, but not this month. Ideally I would post somewhere much more public, such as Amazon, to provide more support to the author. And that has a learning curve, and I didn't do it.
4. Wrap up a 'blind date with a book' and give it to a friend. - I'd never heard of this. You wrap up a book and write a little something about it, like "It has a nice personality" (just kidding). Like the genre and the mood. And then give it to someone. I asked a person what kind of books she liked, and based on that, I got an idea of a book to give her, but then she confirmed a suspicion that makes me think she wouldn't love that book (I think she likes nonfiction focusing on fascinating details more than big-picture nonfiction). So now I don't have the perfect book in mind and will have to do more thinking.
5. Become a book fairy--Learn about the scheme and hide a book for a stranger. This is hosted by an organization from which you buy stickers, or at least bookmarks for a book, and then you set the book out in public where someone will find it. The organization wants the finder to continue the tradition so lots of people get to read the book. I never got around to this either.
6. Done! Follow a recipe which appears in a non-cookery book. - I once read a very complainy memoir on moving to France which I did not enjoy, but the author included a lot of recipes, including one that her daughter insisted on. This plain, boring old recipe was for traditional French (lemon) yogurt cake, and it was awesome. I'm surprised I haven't posted it here, but there are recipes for it online if you're interested.
Another idea would be to get something from an old Girl Scout book. One could argue that it's partly meant to be a cookery book.
I ended up trying the recipe for Welsh Rarebit (fancy cheese toast) from Liz Sonneborn's Wales (Enchantment of the World series). The picture doesn't match the recipe: the recipe says to mix cheddar cheese, flour, Dijon mustard, and butter and heat until it makes a thick sauce and then use it to top toast, but in the picture it looks like it has been broiled after having the sauce added. So I looked up other recipes. Okay, virtually all of them have beer in them instead of milk and also Worcestershire sauce, but yes, you do broil it afterwards. So I did that. The sauce was pretty good and might make a good macaroni and cheese. It was a little too thin to work perfectly like the pictures, but then I just eyeballed the measurements because I didn't have enough stuff for the full recipe.
7. Take part in an in-person book club. I've participated in book club meetings at both my local library and with the No Kidder's club. I do like hearing people's opinions about interesting books, but I usually read the reviews at goodreads. I never even looked up what books they're doing now.
8. Take part in a silent book club. - I'd never heard of these before. Everyone comes to a cafe or something with their own book and reads. Silently. I can do that more comfortably and cheaply at home. But apparently many times people will talk about the book their reading just before or just after the official time for the silent book club. I actually found one of this in my city, but did not try it out.
9. Make a book nook. Yes, I want to do this. I didn't get one yet, though. Some creative Rebels made theirs from scratch rather than from a kit, which was pretty cool.
10. Done! Read a book you haven't read since childhood. This was hard. All the books I remember liking from my childhood I have re-read multiple times throughout my adulthood. The one exception is The Furious Flycycle, only because I haven't been able to find a copy, and I still can't find a copy. I remember once when my brother and I were babysitting each other, we watched "The Twilight Zone" and then were too scared to sleep. So we used The Furious Flycycle as an antidote of silly fun and it totally worked!
Finally I remembered how I once had a teacher who'd read Pippi Longstocking to us, one chapter a day (or was it one chapter a week?). I have not read it since, so I got it from the library and read it.
I remembered that I'd always looked forward to hearing the next chapter and that Pippi cleaned the floor by strapping scrub brushes on her feet and skating through the soapy water, which was cool. I think Pippi was a little too wild for me. I mean I'm someone who preferred "Mr. Rogers" over "The Electric Company" and even "Sesame Street."
Well, unlike so many old books, the suck fairy did not visit (it was not full of racism, sexism, etc.). Indeed, Pippi was a bit wild for my tastes, but often our normal ways of doing things would perplex her in ways that were perfectly easy to understand. So the book can make you take a second look at cultural norms, which is fun. I also liked that she never tried to lure people into doing crazy stuff with her. She had a very strong policy that people should only do what they want to do. She would invite her friends over to watch her adventures and they were allowed to join her or just enjoy them vicariously, which was pretty cool. I didn't enjoy her whopper lies about how people live in different countries though. And overall, her ideas were too messy for my tastes. But this book had been on my list to re-read as a classic from Sweden, so I got to check that off my list, too.
11. Read a book which was made into a film; then watch the film and compare. I've done this many times; the book is almost always better the movie. (Exception: "The Firm" movie captured the book plus had a better ending.) I've also discovered that I'd generally rather watch the movie first. I enjoy the movie, and then I enjoy the book more. If I read the book first, then the movie is at least partly a disappointment. Though I can also understand wanting to read the book first unbiased by what the filmmakers have done.
Sometimes the book and movie are so different that they can each just be enjoyed on their own terms if you can just convince yourself that it's parallel universes. Like "Ready Player One" had all different puzzles than Ready Player One.
I did find a few pairs of books and movies where I hadn't already read the book or seen the movie (Hidden Figures, The Devil Wears Prada), but never got around to checking them out.
12. Paint or draw your favorite book cover. I have no idea what my favorite book cover is. Nor am I good at painting or drawing. I'd thought of looking for books with very plain covers I could try to copy.
13. Design a new cover for a book you love. My first idea was for books where the artist clearly hadn't read the book, and I'd want a cover truer to the book. My partner's idea is for books that have spoilers in the cover!
Again, I can't draw.
But I just now got the idea that I could find some of the drawings done by the author of Paige's Story and use them to make another kind of cover.
14. Write a letter to your favorite author. Why? Who? I think my favorite author is Stephen Bury because I like both their books, but that's really two authors and one of them is famous.
Apparently less famous authors still like to get letters from fans talking about what they liked or how the book affected them.
15. Read a book to a child who is not related to you. I have not done this since I worked in a day care center. That was my second favorite thing to do at that job, the first being playing soccer in the sandbox. Six of them against one of me was pretty evenly matched and therefore fun!
With my nieces, it is traditional for us to take turns reading pages (or pairs of pages). That's cool!
I do not currently have easy, non-creepy access to kids. Although I'm just now realizing I have a neighbor who has a kid in the hospital right now who just might enjoy being read to, but gah! Social skills! Commitment!
16. Done! Read a book from a genre you wouldn't normally choose. There are reasons why I stay away from certain genres. But I realized that book genres are like movie genres which I think of as having three categories:
a) The kind I like so much that I even like mediocre movies or books from that genre.
b) The kind I like only when the movie or book is really good.
c) The kind I want to avoid.
So the second category would be ideal for this requirement. And for books, the obvious choice is fantasy. And I've been wanting to read some more books by the author of the Murderbot series, but her other books are fantasy rather than sci-fi. So I'm reading Wheel of the Infinite, though I'm not quite finished yet.
As expected, I don't love it like Murderbot. (But it's just not fair to compare other books to Murderbot.) Interestingly, the fantasy world is based on a far eastern medieval society rather than the usual English medieval society, so that was mildly interesting. But the descriptions of everything, though long and detailed, don't paint a very good picture in my head. I'm always getting surprised--wait, we haven't gotten there? I guess we saw it from afar and now we're closer. The magic of course doesn't make sense to me. Fortunately, they have an equally ignorant character who gets explanations, but the whole book is about the main character not understanding some magic-based thing that's happening and so they are wandering around trying to figure that out. I do like the characters, but it's not enough to make me want to read the book again. I'd still try another of her fantasies, though.
17. Make a set of bookends - In school I made a plaster-of-paris sculpture (from one of those tiny milk cartons) that I use as a bookend right now. Mostly I use the uprights of shelves as bookends.
But doing some research I learned that putting craft foam under something heavy helps keep it from slipping and thus makes it a better bookend. I also found Jack Heath's invisible bookends made from paper that I want to try.
18. Read a book with a mushroom on the cover. I've been wanting to read this one highly-reviewed book on the life of mushrooms but I can't remember which one it is. (I think it's Entangled Life, or is it Mycelium Running or something else?) The two I mentioned are at my library but checked out with holds. I never even put my own hold on one of these books.
19. Read a book which features a dragon. I have already read several books featuring dragons and got some more recommendations from fellow Rebels, but never found them, let alone read them.
20. Big bookmark exchange - Design and make a bookmark and swap it with another Rebel. Talking? To strangers? Not my favorite. Plus the best bookmarks I make are out of either old greeting cards or magazines, like from the wildflower center. Not fancy cross-stitch or whatever.
Looking to see if there were bookmarks that didn't slip out so easily, I found these origami bookmarks that you slide over the corner of the book. Maybe I should try one of those. But it does look like it would take both hands to put on, and would I end up just slipping them between the pages like regular bookmarks?
21. Help with a literacy program, either online or locally. The closest I've come is mailing books to a friend in prison. He could already read, though. I have another friend who's helped with the Inside Books Project sending books to prisoners--and last I heard, what they most want are dictionaries and Spanish/English dictionaries, which are definitely related to literacy. I've also worked for one of those tutoring companies teaching reading to school kids. But I didn't do anything new for this badge.
22. Read a book with the word "duck" in the title. A fellow Rebel recommended Mark Atkinson's Run Like Duck: A Guide for the Unathletic which sounds fun but my library doesn't have it. Another Rebel recommended Tarquin Hall's Case of the Elusive Bombay Duck, which is still on order at my library. They also have electronic copies but they are all checked out.
23. Done! Read a banned book and unpick why it was banned. I've already read a lot of banned books. But a fellow Rebel recommended Jeannette Winterson's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, which I'd never even heard of, and my library had it so, victory! Except this was not my thing. I guess this could have counted as a book in a genre I don't normally read (literary). A gal was adopted specifically to be groomed into becoming a missionary, which sounds horrifying but it actually worked out great. The gal loved the work and was good at it. Unfortunately, she was attracted to women.
The book was banned by people who oppose promoting homosexuality, and having a likeable person who is also gay is seen as promoting it. Even though it turned her life upside down and is more of a warning than a promotion. The book was also banned by religious people who don't like they way it portrays Christianity. Even though the most extreme character, the mother, was described as crazy, not a typical Christian. And our main character did have allies in the church, though, admittedly, most of them ended up leaving town, as did she.
The book was pretty interesting, being set in a world pretty alien to me. And the writing was thoughtful with interesting things to say. But the plot! I found no resolution. For example, the mother stopped saying "Oranges are the only fruit" and started saying they weren't. Why? What changed for her? I have no clue. I don't know why the protagonist went home after being disowned. I don't know why the mother then accepted her as if she's just been gone for a day.
24. Done! Read a choose-your-own-adventure style book. A fellow rebel recommended My Lady's Choosing, set in the Regency period. It started off great! "You are you, the plucky, penniless, Regency-era [female, hetero] version." But apparently you're also sex-crazed, which is not what I'm looking for in a Regency romance. (Or any book.) Also, characters come out of nowhere. She has a brother? Her dead lover never died? Ugh, I have no interest in re-reading this to see the other possible adventures.
On bodice-rippers, a fellow Rebel said she can't stand to read them because the sex scenes feel like a radio announcer narrating and she can't help hearing Howard Cosell's voice. Hilarious. In my case, that might help!
25. Donate some books to a free library. I've done this fairly recently. Two months later the books were still there, so I moved them to another little free library (farther from me), where they may still be there to this day. I wonder if, as people have moved to digital reading, little free libraries have changed from places where the problem is people stealing all the books to sell them into places where people dump their unwanted print books.
I wouldn't mind donating some kids' books to the free library by my local elementary school, but I have not acquired any.
26. Turn a quote from a book into art. Hmm, what quote? All my favorite quotes that come to mind mean nothing out of context. For example, "No, they wouldn't." (A guy in handcuffs tripped while climbing up the stairs. The immigration officer caught him so he wouldn't fall. The guy thanked him. The officer said anyone would have done the same." But no, no they wouldn't!)
Maybe I could draw a space ship hanging in the air, "much like a brick doesn't" (from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). Or the deliverator from Snow Crash with "esprit up to here."
27. Do some 'extreme reading.' Read a book in weird and wonderful places all month and share the pictures in the group. I am already known throughout the neighborhood as that weirdo who reads while walking. I have pretty good peripheral vision and do stop at intersections and other obviously risky spots. But I have walked into a tree branch and I have failed to see someone approaching me on foot at a comfortable distance. I should not be encouraged in this behavior. It would be better to learn how to get electronic books on my phone and listen while I walk.
It has been fun seeing pictures of fellow Rebels reading on mountain trails, on roller coasters, and other silly places, though I can't help thinking that mostly they were just posing rather than reading.
28. Create a travelling book club with 3 or 4 other Rebels. You each start with a different book, read it, and add annotations. Then you all send your books on to another member and continue. Once you've all read and annotated all the books, have a Zoom call to discuss. Use the Rebel Readers group to organize this. This sounds super fun with the right books, and I even had someone offer to include me, but I lost that offer.
There are 28 requirements of which at least six must be completed.
The first thing I learned is that I tend to lose motivation between when I learn about a new challenge and when I'm officially allowed to start it. I appreciate the lead time for planning, but in reality, instead of waiting a few days, I wait a couple of weeks, and then it feels like stress. In the future I'll start whenever I feel like, though I won't post anything until the first day.
Even with only 6 things required, I didn't finish by the end of the month, having done only 5. That's okay; the mantra around there is how badges are self-assessed, so you can do them however you like. And it's all about fun and personal growth, and there's more of that to be squeezed out of this challenge, so I'll keep going. But I'm posting now so I can link from the group's page during the proper month.
I'd already done many of the requirements in the past. Those aren't supposed to count. But there are also plenty of requirements for things I've never done. And there's room to do old things in new ways. And of course any excuse for more charity, even if it's just repeating something that's been done in the past, is good. It's the last day today, so I'll post now, but I plan to do a few extra things as well.
Here are my notes (crazy long, so behind a cut).
1. Dress up as your favorite character and pose with the book they are from. Who is my favorite character? Is it the guy from Blind Waves? I think I'd need a suit? And handcuffs? And to get a burn scar for one side of my face. Or Robin's favorite from that book is the gal--I'd just need a tank top, shorts, and a ponytail.
Better, I think, would be to dress as "a" favorite character, one who would be fun to dress up as. I have enjoyed dressing up as Willy Wonka from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at work and passing out candy to people I see.
I've also dressed as Greta Thunberg from No One is Too Small Too Make a Difference (nonfiction, but still a book) for Halloween. It was a couple costume--my partner was my protest sign. I'd memorized a lot of quotes to say seriously to people, but that's not ideal party behavior!
And just now I realized it might also be fun to dress as Mrs. Pollifax, from, say The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax. I'm old enough now! I'd need a big hat with lots of flowers all over it and some kind of pre-polyester-age old-lady dress and probably high heels, but I'd have to check. Maybe for Halloween this year.
2. Host a party where the food and entertainment are based on a book. A roommate and I once threw a party based on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We made golden tickets to mail out in envelopes decorated like Wonka bars. We made a floor-to-ceiling chocolate pipe (okay, just a tube) from brown construction paper. We labeled our closed bedroom doors as rooms from the factory. And when people arrived, invariably it wasn't exactly at the start time. So one of us would open the door and say how the invitation clearly said a certain time and it was now another time. "Good day!" and close the door. Then the other one of us would open the side door, "Psst! Come on in!" And when they did, the first person would say, "Ah there you are, glad you could make it!"
We learned there is such a thing as too much chocolate. And also, watch the movie before eating so that the candy scenes are mouth-watering instead of groan-inducing!
Right now my house is not good for parties. I have not even tried to think of a book I like that could inspire a party in a public place.
3. Write a review of a book you love and post it somewhere publicly. I've posted many reviews on this blog, but not this month. Ideally I would post somewhere much more public, such as Amazon, to provide more support to the author. And that has a learning curve, and I didn't do it.
4. Wrap up a 'blind date with a book' and give it to a friend. - I'd never heard of this. You wrap up a book and write a little something about it, like "It has a nice personality" (just kidding). Like the genre and the mood. And then give it to someone. I asked a person what kind of books she liked, and based on that, I got an idea of a book to give her, but then she confirmed a suspicion that makes me think she wouldn't love that book (I think she likes nonfiction focusing on fascinating details more than big-picture nonfiction). So now I don't have the perfect book in mind and will have to do more thinking.
5. Become a book fairy--Learn about the scheme and hide a book for a stranger. This is hosted by an organization from which you buy stickers, or at least bookmarks for a book, and then you set the book out in public where someone will find it. The organization wants the finder to continue the tradition so lots of people get to read the book. I never got around to this either.
6. Done! Follow a recipe which appears in a non-cookery book. - I once read a very complainy memoir on moving to France which I did not enjoy, but the author included a lot of recipes, including one that her daughter insisted on. This plain, boring old recipe was for traditional French (lemon) yogurt cake, and it was awesome. I'm surprised I haven't posted it here, but there are recipes for it online if you're interested.
Another idea would be to get something from an old Girl Scout book. One could argue that it's partly meant to be a cookery book.
I ended up trying the recipe for Welsh Rarebit (fancy cheese toast) from Liz Sonneborn's Wales (Enchantment of the World series). The picture doesn't match the recipe: the recipe says to mix cheddar cheese, flour, Dijon mustard, and butter and heat until it makes a thick sauce and then use it to top toast, but in the picture it looks like it has been broiled after having the sauce added. So I looked up other recipes. Okay, virtually all of them have beer in them instead of milk and also Worcestershire sauce, but yes, you do broil it afterwards. So I did that. The sauce was pretty good and might make a good macaroni and cheese. It was a little too thin to work perfectly like the pictures, but then I just eyeballed the measurements because I didn't have enough stuff for the full recipe.
7. Take part in an in-person book club. I've participated in book club meetings at both my local library and with the No Kidder's club. I do like hearing people's opinions about interesting books, but I usually read the reviews at goodreads. I never even looked up what books they're doing now.
8. Take part in a silent book club. - I'd never heard of these before. Everyone comes to a cafe or something with their own book and reads. Silently. I can do that more comfortably and cheaply at home. But apparently many times people will talk about the book their reading just before or just after the official time for the silent book club. I actually found one of this in my city, but did not try it out.
9. Make a book nook. Yes, I want to do this. I didn't get one yet, though. Some creative Rebels made theirs from scratch rather than from a kit, which was pretty cool.
10. Done! Read a book you haven't read since childhood. This was hard. All the books I remember liking from my childhood I have re-read multiple times throughout my adulthood. The one exception is The Furious Flycycle, only because I haven't been able to find a copy, and I still can't find a copy. I remember once when my brother and I were babysitting each other, we watched "The Twilight Zone" and then were too scared to sleep. So we used The Furious Flycycle as an antidote of silly fun and it totally worked!
Finally I remembered how I once had a teacher who'd read Pippi Longstocking to us, one chapter a day (or was it one chapter a week?). I have not read it since, so I got it from the library and read it.
I remembered that I'd always looked forward to hearing the next chapter and that Pippi cleaned the floor by strapping scrub brushes on her feet and skating through the soapy water, which was cool. I think Pippi was a little too wild for me. I mean I'm someone who preferred "Mr. Rogers" over "The Electric Company" and even "Sesame Street."
Well, unlike so many old books, the suck fairy did not visit (it was not full of racism, sexism, etc.). Indeed, Pippi was a bit wild for my tastes, but often our normal ways of doing things would perplex her in ways that were perfectly easy to understand. So the book can make you take a second look at cultural norms, which is fun. I also liked that she never tried to lure people into doing crazy stuff with her. She had a very strong policy that people should only do what they want to do. She would invite her friends over to watch her adventures and they were allowed to join her or just enjoy them vicariously, which was pretty cool. I didn't enjoy her whopper lies about how people live in different countries though. And overall, her ideas were too messy for my tastes. But this book had been on my list to re-read as a classic from Sweden, so I got to check that off my list, too.
11. Read a book which was made into a film; then watch the film and compare. I've done this many times; the book is almost always better the movie. (Exception: "The Firm" movie captured the book plus had a better ending.) I've also discovered that I'd generally rather watch the movie first. I enjoy the movie, and then I enjoy the book more. If I read the book first, then the movie is at least partly a disappointment. Though I can also understand wanting to read the book first unbiased by what the filmmakers have done.
Sometimes the book and movie are so different that they can each just be enjoyed on their own terms if you can just convince yourself that it's parallel universes. Like "Ready Player One" had all different puzzles than Ready Player One.
I did find a few pairs of books and movies where I hadn't already read the book or seen the movie (Hidden Figures, The Devil Wears Prada), but never got around to checking them out.
12. Paint or draw your favorite book cover. I have no idea what my favorite book cover is. Nor am I good at painting or drawing. I'd thought of looking for books with very plain covers I could try to copy.
13. Design a new cover for a book you love. My first idea was for books where the artist clearly hadn't read the book, and I'd want a cover truer to the book. My partner's idea is for books that have spoilers in the cover!
Again, I can't draw.
But I just now got the idea that I could find some of the drawings done by the author of Paige's Story and use them to make another kind of cover.
14. Write a letter to your favorite author. Why? Who? I think my favorite author is Stephen Bury because I like both their books, but that's really two authors and one of them is famous.
Apparently less famous authors still like to get letters from fans talking about what they liked or how the book affected them.
15. Read a book to a child who is not related to you. I have not done this since I worked in a day care center. That was my second favorite thing to do at that job, the first being playing soccer in the sandbox. Six of them against one of me was pretty evenly matched and therefore fun!
With my nieces, it is traditional for us to take turns reading pages (or pairs of pages). That's cool!
I do not currently have easy, non-creepy access to kids. Although I'm just now realizing I have a neighbor who has a kid in the hospital right now who just might enjoy being read to, but gah! Social skills! Commitment!
16. Done! Read a book from a genre you wouldn't normally choose. There are reasons why I stay away from certain genres. But I realized that book genres are like movie genres which I think of as having three categories:
a) The kind I like so much that I even like mediocre movies or books from that genre.
b) The kind I like only when the movie or book is really good.
c) The kind I want to avoid.
So the second category would be ideal for this requirement. And for books, the obvious choice is fantasy. And I've been wanting to read some more books by the author of the Murderbot series, but her other books are fantasy rather than sci-fi. So I'm reading Wheel of the Infinite, though I'm not quite finished yet.
As expected, I don't love it like Murderbot. (But it's just not fair to compare other books to Murderbot.) Interestingly, the fantasy world is based on a far eastern medieval society rather than the usual English medieval society, so that was mildly interesting. But the descriptions of everything, though long and detailed, don't paint a very good picture in my head. I'm always getting surprised--wait, we haven't gotten there? I guess we saw it from afar and now we're closer. The magic of course doesn't make sense to me. Fortunately, they have an equally ignorant character who gets explanations, but the whole book is about the main character not understanding some magic-based thing that's happening and so they are wandering around trying to figure that out. I do like the characters, but it's not enough to make me want to read the book again. I'd still try another of her fantasies, though.
17. Make a set of bookends - In school I made a plaster-of-paris sculpture (from one of those tiny milk cartons) that I use as a bookend right now. Mostly I use the uprights of shelves as bookends.
But doing some research I learned that putting craft foam under something heavy helps keep it from slipping and thus makes it a better bookend. I also found Jack Heath's invisible bookends made from paper that I want to try.
18. Read a book with a mushroom on the cover. I've been wanting to read this one highly-reviewed book on the life of mushrooms but I can't remember which one it is. (I think it's Entangled Life, or is it Mycelium Running or something else?) The two I mentioned are at my library but checked out with holds. I never even put my own hold on one of these books.
19. Read a book which features a dragon. I have already read several books featuring dragons and got some more recommendations from fellow Rebels, but never found them, let alone read them.
20. Big bookmark exchange - Design and make a bookmark and swap it with another Rebel. Talking? To strangers? Not my favorite. Plus the best bookmarks I make are out of either old greeting cards or magazines, like from the wildflower center. Not fancy cross-stitch or whatever.
Looking to see if there were bookmarks that didn't slip out so easily, I found these origami bookmarks that you slide over the corner of the book. Maybe I should try one of those. But it does look like it would take both hands to put on, and would I end up just slipping them between the pages like regular bookmarks?
21. Help with a literacy program, either online or locally. The closest I've come is mailing books to a friend in prison. He could already read, though. I have another friend who's helped with the Inside Books Project sending books to prisoners--and last I heard, what they most want are dictionaries and Spanish/English dictionaries, which are definitely related to literacy. I've also worked for one of those tutoring companies teaching reading to school kids. But I didn't do anything new for this badge.
22. Read a book with the word "duck" in the title. A fellow Rebel recommended Mark Atkinson's Run Like Duck: A Guide for the Unathletic which sounds fun but my library doesn't have it. Another Rebel recommended Tarquin Hall's Case of the Elusive Bombay Duck, which is still on order at my library. They also have electronic copies but they are all checked out.
23. Done! Read a banned book and unpick why it was banned. I've already read a lot of banned books. But a fellow Rebel recommended Jeannette Winterson's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, which I'd never even heard of, and my library had it so, victory! Except this was not my thing. I guess this could have counted as a book in a genre I don't normally read (literary). A gal was adopted specifically to be groomed into becoming a missionary, which sounds horrifying but it actually worked out great. The gal loved the work and was good at it. Unfortunately, she was attracted to women.
The book was banned by people who oppose promoting homosexuality, and having a likeable person who is also gay is seen as promoting it. Even though it turned her life upside down and is more of a warning than a promotion. The book was also banned by religious people who don't like they way it portrays Christianity. Even though the most extreme character, the mother, was described as crazy, not a typical Christian. And our main character did have allies in the church, though, admittedly, most of them ended up leaving town, as did she.
The book was pretty interesting, being set in a world pretty alien to me. And the writing was thoughtful with interesting things to say. But the plot! I found no resolution. For example, the mother stopped saying "Oranges are the only fruit" and started saying they weren't. Why? What changed for her? I have no clue. I don't know why the protagonist went home after being disowned. I don't know why the mother then accepted her as if she's just been gone for a day.
24. Done! Read a choose-your-own-adventure style book. A fellow rebel recommended My Lady's Choosing, set in the Regency period. It started off great! "You are you, the plucky, penniless, Regency-era [female, hetero] version." But apparently you're also sex-crazed, which is not what I'm looking for in a Regency romance. (Or any book.) Also, characters come out of nowhere. She has a brother? Her dead lover never died? Ugh, I have no interest in re-reading this to see the other possible adventures.
On bodice-rippers, a fellow Rebel said she can't stand to read them because the sex scenes feel like a radio announcer narrating and she can't help hearing Howard Cosell's voice. Hilarious. In my case, that might help!
25. Donate some books to a free library. I've done this fairly recently. Two months later the books were still there, so I moved them to another little free library (farther from me), where they may still be there to this day. I wonder if, as people have moved to digital reading, little free libraries have changed from places where the problem is people stealing all the books to sell them into places where people dump their unwanted print books.
I wouldn't mind donating some kids' books to the free library by my local elementary school, but I have not acquired any.
26. Turn a quote from a book into art. Hmm, what quote? All my favorite quotes that come to mind mean nothing out of context. For example, "No, they wouldn't." (A guy in handcuffs tripped while climbing up the stairs. The immigration officer caught him so he wouldn't fall. The guy thanked him. The officer said anyone would have done the same." But no, no they wouldn't!)
Maybe I could draw a space ship hanging in the air, "much like a brick doesn't" (from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). Or the deliverator from Snow Crash with "esprit up to here."
27. Do some 'extreme reading.' Read a book in weird and wonderful places all month and share the pictures in the group. I am already known throughout the neighborhood as that weirdo who reads while walking. I have pretty good peripheral vision and do stop at intersections and other obviously risky spots. But I have walked into a tree branch and I have failed to see someone approaching me on foot at a comfortable distance. I should not be encouraged in this behavior. It would be better to learn how to get electronic books on my phone and listen while I walk.
It has been fun seeing pictures of fellow Rebels reading on mountain trails, on roller coasters, and other silly places, though I can't help thinking that mostly they were just posing rather than reading.
28. Create a travelling book club with 3 or 4 other Rebels. You each start with a different book, read it, and add annotations. Then you all send your books on to another member and continue. Once you've all read and annotated all the books, have a Zoom call to discuss. Use the Rebel Readers group to organize this. This sounds super fun with the right books, and I even had someone offer to include me, but I lost that offer.