Dewey's 24-hour Read-A-Thon [Events]

Did you know that one week from today will be the semi-annual Dewey's Read-A-Thon?

Starting at 5am Pacific Time, or 1pm GMT, on April 10th, hundreds of readers will be entering into the frenzy that is the read-a-thon.

What is Dewey’s 24-Hour Read-a-thon? For 24 hours, we read books, post to our blogs about our reading, and visit other readers’ blogs. We also participate in mini-challenges throughout the day. It happens twice a year, in April and in October.

It was created by the beloved Dewey (her blog has since been taken down, so the link won’t work). The first one was held in October 2007. Dewey died in late 2008. We’re still saddened by her absence, but the show must go on. The read-a-thon was renamed to honor its founder in 2009.

There are about a zillion ways that you can participate (okay, fine, four) in the Read-A-Thon:

1. You can read.  But you don't have to read for the entire 24 hours, I mean, you can if you want, but you don't have to! If you want to read, sign up here. 
2. You can be a cheerleader.  This entails going to everyone's blogs and commenting with words of encouragement, or tweetcouragement.  You can commit to 1, 4, 8, 12, or 12+ hour shifts of cheerleading.  Sound fun?  Sign up here.
3. You can host a mini-challenge.  Mini-challenges are fun little breaks for the readers so that they can take a little break from reading.  Some are creative projects, some are yoga breaks, some are internet searches, you come up with your challenge and submit it, and then you host it at your blog.  Interested?  Sign-up here.
4. You can donate a prize.  The mini-challenges often have prizes associated, and there are also random prizes chosen for cheerleaders, participants, etc.  The more prizes, the merrier, right?  If you want to donate a prize, email DeweyReadathon at gmail.  

This year, I'm cohosting, cheerleading, and reading. It'll be interesting because this will be the first time that Monster will be home during a Read-A-Thon.  I'm hoping I can get him to participate for at least 12 hours.  I'm going to try for twelve hours of reading, one hour of cheerleading, and my six hour shift of cohosting.  If you're interested in seeing what my posts have looked like in the past, check out the posts tagged read-a-thon, so that you can get an idea.  They're not all from Dewey's Read-A-Thon, but if you go back to October there will be some.  Hope to see you at the 'thon!

Now, for my selections for the Read-A-Thon:


In twelve hours, I'm hoping to conquer four books (in no particular order):

• Green Angel by Alice Hoffman (116 pages)
• Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (198 pages)
• Dingo by Charles de Lint (213 pages)
• Fairy Tale by Cyn Balog (246 pages)

Hey... so tell us, are you going to participate?  I'd love to hear.  And I'd love for you to email me to get extra entries if you've read this far.  How does three to the giveaway of your choice sound?