#FridayReads: A Reader Journal

For the past couple of years, I've been on a bit of an organization kick. I'm blogger - probably too many times - about my love for my Happy Planner, and talked about goal setting, and shared my motivation/goal-inspired Words of the Year.

This year, I'm adding to that with something totally new - a reader's journal. I'm doing a reader challenge - actually 2 - this year. The first is a 50 books in 50 weeks challenge I'm behind and we're not even halfway through the year...but I have hopes I'll catch up. Why a 50 book challenge? It sounded like fun and, well, why not give it a go? But apparently, when I decide to do something now I go all out - because I'm not just doing the 50 book challenge, I'm doing a read/watch challenge. In which I read a book and watch a movie/documentary/tv show all with the same theme -- themes like 'New Beginnings' and 'Retro' and 'Unusual'. That challenge I'm keeping up with, possibly because it's one theme per month, believe it if it was a theme a week, I'd be so far behind. Anywho, with these reading challenges, I decided I didn't only want to read, I wanted to think about what I was reading - what I liked/didn't like, how what I'm reading is changing my thoughts about...oh, everything and anything. A journal is what I needed, but I needed a journal that wasn't just blank or I knew I wouldn't use it. Or that it would wind up with a simple listing of book titles and authors, and I wanted more than that.

I found this little goodie at BooksAMillion, thumbed through it a little and realized this is exactly what I was looking for - a reader's journal with just enough direction. There is a place for the title and author (naturally) along with follow-up
books (assuming it's a series book) or just more books by that author that seem interesting. But, the journal also prompts for favorite quotes from the books, plot things I liked/didn't, and character things I liked/didn't.

But what I like best about this journal is the pictures. Samantha Hahn is the journal 'author' and along with the journaling part, she's included her watercolors of famous literary women - Wendy from the Peter Pan books, Emma Bovary, Hester Prynne, Ophelia, and even little Mary Lennox from "The Secret Garden". There is also a quote from each book (y'all know how I love a favorite quote)...and I'm already considering re-reading a few of these favorites as the year goes on.

I'm excited to start both reading challenges, but now I'm just as excited to start my very first reader's journal...I can't wait for all the adventures I'll find between the pages this year.