My accelerated reading goal for 2017

Babbling Brooks Column
By: 
Kim Brooks
Express Editor

     Every May the Express features photos of students from Carpenter Elementary School who reached their Accelerated Reading point goals. This typically involves many students, so kudos to them for hitting their reading benchmarks!

     I’ve written several columns in my eight years here at the Express about my love of reading. In the past, I have strived to read a certain amount of books, heck just finish one book, but time consumes me. (I was proud to finish Stephen Kings “11/22/63” in 2016. That’s an accomplishment in itself at over 1,000 pages!)

     So while everyone set fitness and health goals at the start of the new year, I, too, set a goal to read eight books in 2017. (Don’t ask me why I chose eight books. Ten books seemed too big of a goal; five books seemed not enough.)

     I took to the GoodReads app I downloaded on my phone to clock my goal. You can share your goal with other GoodReads users, as well as share on social media.

     A couple weeks ago I completed one of the eight books. I read “Sully: My Search for What Really Matters” by Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger. He is the pilot who safely landed his 155-passenger plane on the Hudson River in New York City. (The movie is just as riveting as the book.)

     Having read one book, knowing I set my goal of eight, now I’m beginning to think perhaps I could read 10 books. (But let’s not overdue it.)

     I am now reading “How to Make an American Quilt” by Whitney Otto. It was published in 1991. The movie, starring Winona Ryder, Ellen Burstyn, Anne Bancroft, and Maya Angelou, came out in 1995.

     The movie has long been one of my favorites, with stories of various women of varying ages and backgrounds come together.

     The weird thing is I never knew the movie existed as a book until about a year ago. So imagine my excitement to read the book that inspired the movie!

     I seem to have a pattern of watching movies then reading the books in which they stem from. I like to picture the scenes as I read the book, and even read bits and pieces that are not included in the movies.

     I am not generally a fan of fiction. I prefer non-fiction namely historical non-fiction and true stories or biographies/autobiographies.

     Next on my eight-book reading goal: “Michelle Obama: A Life,” “Born a Crime,” and “Game of Crowns.”

     So how does this all relate to Accelerated Reading? Well, when I mentioned my reading goal to co-worker Pete Temple, he had the brilliant idea of taking my picture when I reach my goal! So, there’s that to look forward to…(more for me than anyone else, I suppose.)

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