Monday, January 7, 2013

Winter Reading Program

I am SO excited!  Twice a year my local library does an adult reading program and today, Monday, is the kick off of the Winter Reading Program.  Many libraries do summer reading programs for people of all ages, but I am blessed to live by a library that also does an adult winter reading program.  The program works just like most library reading programs.  You get a small prize just for signing up, usually something like a pen or a magnet.  (This year it was an cookie which I ate in the car before I even left the library...yum!)  For each book you read and review your name is entered for a prize drawing.  There are weekly prize drawings and then there are the three grand prizes.  Now this is all well and good, but nothing to write home about.  I mean library reading programs are nothing new.  But, what really gets me is the competition with my friend.  Every winter and summer when the reading program rolls around my friend and I begin a cut-throat reading competition.  I'm a competitive person, and so is she.  Neither of us can stand to lose and so together we spur one another one to read ridiculous numbers of books in short periods of time.  (The winter program only lasts 4 weeks.)  Now, there are two ways in which to win in our made-up competition.
  1. Read the most number of books.  And while this may sound easy, last summer both of use read more than 20 books in about 8 weeks.  We take this seriously.  To win this way you really have to spend your time reading!
  2. Win one of the grand prizes.  Two summers ago I blew my friend out of the water.  I way out read her, but it didn't matter.  When she called to say she had won a grand prize, I knew, as if by some unspoken agreement in our made-up rules, that she had truly won that summer.
Now although the competition is fierce, and the smack talking is doubly fierce, the friendship is stronger than both and ultimately we both want one of us (or preferably both of us) to win prizes.  The ultimate goal to read for is the year that the two of us with 2 of the 3 grand prizes!

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