2024 is here and it is time to make some reading goals! I was VERY good at meeting my 2023 goals, clocking in at 1022 books read, including 500 picture books, 14 short story collections, and 47 audiobooks, and I know this because I tracked it all year long. Now, I’m in the habit of tracking like a professional, so I am not even going to make that a goal this year. It’s just part of my life now.
But….this year I also reckoned with my reading habits a bit. 2023 started with me on one committee, and I chaired a whole other committee before the year ended. The Carnegie Medal WINNERS will be announced later in January. In November 2023, I also accepted my award committee appointment for 2024-2025, which is exciting! That’s the earliest I’ve ever known about a committee, and I’m making my goals accordingly.
Here are my seven main reading goals for 2024. Some are uh…weird, and incredibly specific to me, some are career based, and some are an attempt to get some of these books OUT OF MY HOUSE as I welcome hundreds more in through committee work.
Read the Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor
My uncle gave a bunch of us copies of this in…December 2021. I made it a goal to read it in 2022…and didn’t. This year, I am doing it! It has 31 stories in it, so I will TRY to read it all in January…which has 31 days. If I am VERY adventurous, and VERY brave, I will also try to reach the Collected Stories of John Cheever, which has 61 stories, in March and April (which has 61 days). But Flannery is my real goal.
Have no more than 60 books checked out from the libraries at any time
This largely is a me problem, I know. As a library employee, I can pretty much check out however much I want, and I also go to the Arlington Library a lot, but I need to STOP checking out all the books for all these projects at once and almost breaking my desk. At one point in December, I was literally driving a little book truck around with different groupings of books for all these projects I had going on: my museum annotated bibliography, and the Graded Reading Lists update, and my personal reading and and and. It just got out of control. At one point I had almost 100 books checked out on one card. Right now, as I type this, I have 54 checked out on my personal card, but a huge bag of them ready to go back.
Read all the 2024 Newbery, Caldecott and Geisel Readers (unless already read)
This is something I did in part last year (Caldecott specifically, and then Geisel later) but this year I’m going to be intentional and read them all. They will be announced on January 22nd, and I will try to read them by the end of April, assuming the holds list is do-able. Of course, in a perfect world, I’ve already read all of them! Stay tuned for my YMA predictions coming later this month.
1 Professional Development book a month
I started this in November/December, but I want to read and TAKE NOTES on one professional development book a month. Specifically, these will be library focused. I did From Cover to Cover in December, and some of the ones I have lined up for 2024 include Was the Cat in the Hat Black?, some books on phonics and reading picture books with kids, ASL in early childhood classrooms, and more.
Read 5 books I was really excited to buy/get but haven’t read yet: Reign, A Thousand Heartbeats, Hell Bent, Infamous, I’m the Girl
Again—this is a ME problem, and I hate myself for it. I will get SO EXCITED about a book. I’ll pre-order it, or scream about getting an ARC nine months ahead of time….and I will then not read it. Case in point: Hell Bent…I got an e-ARC of this MONTHS before publication, AND I pre-ordered a hard copy, and it has been out in the world for twelve months and I still haven’t read it. Same for Reign, though less time. Other books I swore I was excited for include the new Kiera Cass, the new Lex Croucher that I literally bought from England, etc. Come on, Aryssa. Get it together. So yeah…I will read all 5 of these books this year. Ideally…by June? Is that too much to ask for? If I read one a month at least, right?
Do NOT buy books for the first three months of the year
I will not buy any books in January, February, or March. This includes pre-orders. I cancelled my pre-order of the Sarah J Maas new book and just put it on hold at the library. Per the previous goal, I probably wouldn’t have read it anyway, lol. I will not buy books at Goodwill, or the Friends of the Library book sale, or on Kindle, etc. I have access to enough books for FREE. I do not need to be spending money on them right now, especially when I have so many in my house I should be working my way through.
Read the DAR book award winners
Each summer at Continental Congress, DAR gives two awards to excellent history books–one for adults, and one for kids. I DID nominate a book in each category this year, so it’s possible I’ve already read the winners…but If I don’t win, lol, then I want to take some time in the second half of the year to read the winners. The adult book is usually one that wasn’t even on my radar, and I loved the book that won last year for kids.
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