The after-effects of an online reading challenge!

           Phew! The past 30 days came and whizzed past by. Apart from the normal cooking, cleaning, part-time work, I was just into books and books. That too, children's books! Our daily routine always covered reading but I never accounted for it or for that matter read any books according to a theme! Reading happened according to Swara's whims or her inclination. Sometimes, it used to be just one book days on end, sometimes, one book throughout the day, especially if it were a brand new one. By participating in this challenge, I was thrown to the wonderful world of picture books which I hadn't known earlier!

          And hence, this post is dedicated to the after-effects of The BubbleInk Challenge. Just as there is a positive side to everything, there's also a negative one too! And I'm going to be very truthful about the negative ones too. And these are my views only. No one is responsible except me for the views which I'm expressing over here!

• I came to know many many wonderful books through this challenge.
• Many of my relatives and friends got encouraged to read to their respective kids.
• I never thought that books could be categorized according to so many themes. (The challenge host told me that many prompts were left behind since only 30 days was the limit!)
• All the participants were so enthusiastic and sportive to take efforts and search and read books related to each day's prompt despite their busy schedules.
• All the participants took the competition in their stride and posted the day's reads on time. I could feel that no one is doing this only for the prize. They genuinely were interested to read to their children.
• So many participants posted links everyday to good books and other book-related information was seen passing around among the participants.
• Many participants becoming online friends with each other is given if interaction is done on daily basis.
• I'm sure sale of books through online stores or bookshops or book exhibitions must have increased manifold thanks to this challenge. (The best example is me!)
• 4 days have passed after the challenge ended, still, I'm sure the book-reading routine is continuing at all participants' homes!
• The downside was that I started spending too much time online often leaving other things behind.
• My last month's budget overshot due to huge amounts of books being ordered!
• And last but not the least, I forgot to read my usual stuff and my so-called 'me-time'. (Since all the vacant time was spent in either reading to Swara or blogging about other's reads! Seriously, I did not touch a single book in the last 30 days!) 

          So, all in all, if the positive effects are bragging a lot than all the negative ones, then we can safely assume that the challenge was a hit! Kudos to BubbleInk Writes. And heartiest congratulations to all the winners! And thank you, BubbleInk Writes for this challenge. Otherwise, we would have been online friends only!

Happy Reading!

Day 30 : Favourite books!

          And finally, we arrive at our last day of the challenge! The last 30 days whizzed so fast that I had to put a full stop to my reading time and concentrate over here. An exclusive post on the effects of this challenge is in the offing! So, today, since it was the concluding day, we had to read favourite books of our kids. I felt a prompt would have been better since there are so many favourites that I had to read them all!

          Here is the list of favourites -

1. Little pea, little hoot and little oink series
2. Ranganna
3. Hello kitty books
4. Time to sleep
5. Pretty princess
6. Snow day fun
7. Make a wish
8. Anna carries water from Tradewind Books
9. Snoring Shanmugham
10. Gajapati kulapati
11. The Gruffalo's child
12. The three little pigs
13. Zero goes to Goa
14. Fuloos plays with the sun
15. Tales from Golden Goa
16. Spiderman vs. Green goblin sticker scene book from Marvel
17. Secret picture search - treasure hunt by Scholastic
18. Topsy and Tim learn to swim
19. Turtle story by Kartik Shankar
20. Three pigs, one wolf and even magic shapes by Grace Maccarone from Scholastic
21. Once upon a feast
22. The lion and the mouse by Jerry Pinkney
23. Elmer book
24. Curious George and the firefighters
25. Fix it duck
26. Rooster raga
27. The runaway wheel
28. Little fox by Brown Watson
29. Thomas and his friends
30. The shape game y Anthony Browne
31. Berenstain Bears and the sitters
32. The very hungry caterpillar
33. Green eggs and ham
34. The gruffalo
35. Geronimo Stilton
36. Room on the broom
37. Purple jojo
38. Greedy Karodimal
39. Birbal and the dishonest officer
40. The Brahmin and three rouges
41. Cat in the hat
42. Hic!
43. Thomas and Bertie and the bumpy line
44. Dad, I can't sleep by Michael Foreman
45. Peter's pebbles by Cherie Zamazing
46. What makes a rainbow?
47. The color kittens
48. Alphablock
49. Goodnight moon
50. My truck is stuck
51. Color color kamini
52. Wish you were here
53. Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish
54. The thins you can say from a - z
55. Giant book of activities
56. After the storm by Nick Butterworth
57. Football fever
58. Emperor of Absurdia
59. Curiosity
60. From head to toe by Eric Carle
61. Goat goes to playschool
62. Toddle waddle
63. Thidwick - the big-hearted moose
64. Not Norman - a goldfish story
65. Touch and feel animals
66. Thomas and friends book

That's it! I enjoyed being a part of this challenge!
My next post is on the advantages and disadvantages of this challenge. Keep tuned!
Happy reading!

 

Day 29 : Regional books!

          Sorry for the late post! How weird it is! I'm writing this post after the challenge has ended and the winners declared! No, I didn't win! More on that later.

          Today's prompt honoured India in a way. We had to read books in our own mother-tongue! So, It was such a great day that participants took the extra effort to find books in their vernacular language and read it to their children! And I must say here, that, really, for reading a book and telling a story, language does not matter at all! I'm sure all the participants agree to it.

          And so, today, I will not list the books read. But I wish to say that books were read in Tamil, Urdu, Telugu, Marathi, Hindi and Kannada today. I hope I'm not missing any language!

          Tomorrow being the last day of the challenge, I'm a bit nervous that this is finally ending!
Till then,
Happy Reading!