2024 Adventures in Reading Challenge - January Theme: Award-Winner

2024 Adventures in Reading Challenge - January Theme: Award-Winner

2023-12-29 19:44:51 by Susie Kirk

Unleash your reading potential and embrace a year of literary exploration with the North Little Rock Public Library's 2024 Adventures in Reading Challenge. Each month, dive into a carefully curated theme, stretching your literary boundaries and discovering new favorites. Whether you prefer the written word or the cinematic experience, this challenge caters to all tastes.

To participate, simply read a book or watch a movie matching the monthly theme, then fill out an entry form at the library or here. Every month, one lucky participant will be rewarded with a gift card to a local restaurant. As the end of the year, all entries will be entered into a grand prize drawing for a chance to win a Kindle Paperwhite e-reader. Join us in making 2024 a year of literary adventures, shared stories, and exciting prizes at the North Little Rock Public Library.

Monthly Challenges:

To kick off the Adventures in Reading Challenge, the library has selected "Award-Winner" as the theme for January. Participants are encouraged to explore the rich tapestry of literature that has garnered accolades and recognition. Whether it's a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel or an Oscar-winning cinematic masterpiece, this theme sets the stage for a captivating start to the year-long journey.

Reading Suggestions:

Fire Keeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley
Daunis, who is part Ojibwe, defers attending the University of Michigan to care for her mother and reluctantly becomes involved in the investigation of a series of drug-related deaths.

Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby
A Black father. A white father. Two murdered sons. A quest for vengeance. Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a Black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid. The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah's white husband, Derek. Ike had never fully accepted his son but is devastated by his loss. Derek's father Buddy Lee was almost as ashamed of Derek for being gay as Derek was ashamed his father was a criminal. Buddy Lee still has contacts in the underworld, though, and he wants to know who killed his boy. Ike and Buddy Lee, two ex-cons with little else in common other than a criminal past and a love for their dead sons, band together in their desperate desire for revenge. In their quest to do better for their sons in death than they did in life, hardened men Ike and Buddy Lee will confront their own prejudices about their sons and each other, as they rain down vengeance upon those who hurt their boys. 

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
This is the way the world ends. . .for the last time. 

It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester. 

This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy. 

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Demon Copperhead is set in the mountains of southern Appalachia. It’s the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities. Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens’ anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can’t imagine leaving behind.