Summer Reading Challenge for Families

Chances are you and your kids have participated in a summer reading challenge before, either through the local library or a local restaurant, but what about hosting an in-house summer reading challenge for your family? Here’s how to do it.

This summer our family is playing BINGO – Bingo of the reading variety. I got some inspiration from early morning Instagram scrolling while fighting jet lag from our Japan trip.

A few clicks on Canva and I had created a summer reading bingo card to share with my peeps.

My challenge for our family, aged 16 to 62: read 100 books collectively from now until the fall equinox.

But not only that, the books — at least those read for prizes along the way — have to fit the categories on the Bingo card, categories I decided on at the unearthly hour of 3 am.

Why Host a Summer Reading Challenge

This year as I explore the idea of writing fiction, I’ve eschewed my beloved Prime Video in exchange for Kindle Unlimited. I’ve read over 80 books so far this year!

Coupled with my renewed love of the written word is my concern over AI making us all stupid.

Recently, I read summaries of the recent MIT study to my kids and was shocked to hear one of them say, “Maybe I should read a real book then.”

Me: What do you mean?

Adult Child: Well, when I’m bored, I ask the AI questions.

Heaven help us.

I’m so thankful for that conversation and the opportunity to put in a plug for good old fashioned reading. We don’t need computers to make us stupid, but we can combat that with reading good books.

Rules for Our Summer Reading Challenge

Pretty much everyone is on board with our summer reading challenge. And of course there were questions, namely:

• Do audio books count? Yes.
• Do books of the Bible count? Yes, but they can’t be one pagers like Philemon or Jude.
• Can a book you just finished count? No. We drew the deadline at June 21st. It has to be a book finished after the first day of summer.
• Can one book count for more than one square on the Bingo card? No.
• When is the deadline? The official end of the challenge is the first day of fall, September 22nd.

Topics

To keep things interesting, I created a list of 16 topics. While I lean toward fiction, I know that young men lean toward nonfiction. Technically, many nonfiction books can fit these categories, but the family will still be challenged to read outside their norms.

One kid’s comment: I love it that our family has a special category for C.S. Lewis. It’s true. He’s the Goat.

The other topics for our Summer Reading Challenge include:

• a classic book
• a book made into a movie
• a book set in a foreign country
• a book featuring a male protagonist 
• a mystery
• a book with a battle
• a love story (doesn’t have to be “romance”)
• a book about God
• a favorite story from your past (an intentional reread)
• a book teaching a skill
• a book featuring a female protagonist 
• a fantasy story
• a book rec from a friend
• a true story
• a science fiction book

I’m keeping things intentionally simple. Reading with and to your kids does pay off. Nothing needs to be complicated.

If you’d like to download our Summer Reading Bingo card, drop your email here and you’ll get instant access to my free printables library.