Announcing the 2017 Hub Reading Challenge!

It’s time to kickoff the 2017 Hub reading challenge! This challenge is intended to encourage librarians, library workers, and YA lit enthusiasts to dive into the award winner and honor books and YALSA selected lists with the hope of providing excellent readers’ advisory and even discovering a new favorite title or exploring a genre outside of your comfort zone.

the hub 2017 reading challenge

Eligible books are the YA titles that were named winners or honor titles the following award and selected lists:

How to Participate

  • The goal is to read any 25 books of the titles from the above lists and awards—find the list of titles here and here in a sortable spreadsheet!

  • Let us know you’re participating by commenting on this post below.
  • If you’re going to be tracking what you read/listen to on your blog or on Goodreads, LibraryThing, YouTube or some other site, include a link to your blog/shelf/channel/profile in your comment. If you’re not tracking your reading online, keep a list some other way.
  • Make it a social experience! Share your challenge progress and get to know other participants by using the hashtag #hubchallenge on Twitter and Instagram.
  • Once a month, we’ll publish a check-in post. Leave a comment to talk about what you’re reading for the challenge. If you’ve reviewed those titles somewhere online, include links to those reviews! Otherwise, let us know what you thought of the books in the comments.
  • There will be an finisher form embedded in each check-in post, so once you’re done with the challenge, fill out the form with your name and contact information.

Challenge rewards

Beyond experiencing the best of the best that YA lit has to offer, everyone who finishes the challenge will be invited to submit a response to a book they read for the challenge. The response can be text, graphics, audio, video and will be published on The Hub. Furthermore, everyone who finishes the challenge will be entered into a random drawing for our grand prize: a YALSA tote bag full of 2015 and 2016 YA lit! (If the winner is a teacher or librarian or something similar, we’ll also include a few professional development titles.)

Guidelines

  • Format matters: a title that has been recognized for both the print version and the audiobook version can be both read and listened to and count as two books, but a book that has won multiple awards or appears on multiple lists in the same format only counts as one title.
  • Books must be read/listened to (both begun and finished) since the award winners and selected lists have been released and 11:59pm EST on June 22. If you’ve already read/listened to a title, you must re-read/listen to it for it to count.
  • Just about everyone who doesn’t work for ALA is eligible to participate. Non-ALA/YALSA members are eligible. Teens are eligible. Non-US residents/citizens are eligible. (More eligibility questions? Leave a comment or email us.)
  • Once you finish the challenge, we’ll contact you with details about creating and publishing your response.
  • The grand prize winner will be selected by 11:59pm EST on June 23. The winner will be notified via email.

If you have any questions or problems, let us know in the comments or via email. Happy reading! 

135 thoughts on “Announcing the 2017 Hub Reading Challenge!”

  6. This will be my 6th year participating and I hope to get some of my Teens on board as well! Thank you HUB team!

  10. I will be participating! As always, I’ve read a lot of books on the list, so this always helps me push a little further out of my regular reach.

  15. I love this challenge! The best part is all the great books I can recommend to my students!!

  16. This sounds like fun! I am always looking for a way to push myself and have a good challenge with my students. I am in! I will be keeping track on Google Sheets and possibly Goodreads..

  19. I’m going to try this again. Last year’s attempt was pitiful but I’m feeling more hopeful this time around. I’ll track on Good Reads and twitter.

  24. The Google Doc containing the list of titles is only 96 items long, and four of them (If I was Your Girl, Salt to the Sea, Nimona, and Burn Baby Burn) are listed twice.

  32. I didn’t do a very good job of keeping this up last year, but I’ll try again this year and hope I do a little better ^_^

  35. Looking forward to participating in this year’s challenge. I will be recording my books on Goodreads and hope to encounter some great reads along the way.

  38. Participating! Hopefully I get closer to victory this year! Haven’t decided whether I’ll track my progress on my blog or not, will let you know if I do.

  39. Are the books on the list of 98 the only ones eligible, or any on the lists on the award winner links?

    1. For lists like BFYA and Quick Picks, they focus on the top ten (for Rainbow we included a couple YA titles that weren’t on the top ten). Really, the point of the challenge is to read great YA or teen-centric books that you’ve missed and get outside your comfort zone, so if you want to include a few from the linked lists that didn’t make the “top ten” cut, go ahead. It’s your challenge. Use it how you see fit.

  52. FYI, as I printed out the list on the spreadsheet/worksheet, the authors end at V and Rick Yancey is not on or has been cut off/out. Thank you

  54. Hello! I’ve been waiting for this challenge eagerly, and thus I made my own list as soon as they were announced! When checking mine against the spreadsheet, I noticed these titles were left off. It looks like it’s cutting off the last few author names (plus a Sarah Dessen one is missing):
    Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen
    We Stand On Guard by Brian K. Vaughan, Steve Skroce, and Matt Hollingsworth
    And I Darken by Kiersten White
    The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey
    The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
    The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner

    The other list has them all, so it’s just the spreadsheet.

    Also, I have a question – The Only Road by Alexandra Diaz is the author award winner for the Pura Belpre, but it’s not on the list. Lowriders to the Center of the Earth (the Belpre honor) is, and from what I can tell they’re meant for about the same audience. Should it be on the list too? Or should Lowriders not be?

    Anyway, looking forward to this! I’m tracking here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/13324287-anna-chappell?shelf=hub-challenge

  56. Finally! Thought it was gone this year. I am definitely participating – gets me out of my comfort zone.

  58. I’m already started…

    Question: The list has 95 titles, the spreadsheet only 90. Which is correct?

  62. It seems like we start earlier every year! At least the deadline is still in June!! :)

    Favorite Reading Challenge!!!

  67. It’s interesting to read what other people participating in the challenge thought about the books, but there are too many people posting to their Goodreads and personal blogs to check each one. Can we make a group page on Goodreads?

  86. I’m in! Thanks for the motivation…starting with the Alex Awards to reconnect with my juniors and seniors who think they’ve outgrown YA and reading class! I’ll post updates on my blog–JulieConlon.com

  89. I will participate and share my thoughts on my organization’s twitter page @fchslib. Looking forward to discovering some great titles!

  95. I’m in! I’ll be keeping track on paper, but will check in occasionally on Twitter @joellmatlack

  101. Did I miss any check-in posts on the blog since February 4? Like last year, is it okay to listen to an audiobook of any given selection in print? Since the objective of the challenge is to encourage exposure to more YA reading, I think it’s appropriate to accept the audiobook listening. Thanks for your consideration!

    1. Check-in posts will happen monthly at the end of each month, rather than weekly as in the past. Audiobooks count for those books that won audiobooks, but if you want to listen to them for books that won in print, no one will know but you! Use the challenge as you see fit. It’s about keeping up with great YA literature, so do what works for you.

  102. I don’t see The Serpent King on the list. This is my first year trying to read all of the Morris Award Finalists. I don’t want to break any rules, so I am just checking that it counts toward the 25 since it was the Morris Award winner.

  111. I’m in! First timer on this and a little daunted about fitting it in with all my other reading but here we go!

  112. I am going to give it a go….but one question. The guidelines state about everyone not ALA associated is eligible, even teens, what about adults? :p

  113. Can’t wait to read through all these fantastic books. It’s going to be tough to only choose 25 this year!

  124. I’m getting a super late start this year, but I’m excited about a lot of the titles. This will be my 4th year and I’ll keep track of my progress on http://www.bibliobeat.com. I’ll start off with some of the graphic novels to maybe “catch-up” a little. I’m not a big graphic novel reader, so this will help me widen my horizons!

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