Hey, Rushers!

We are so excited to only be a month away from the Reading Rush! As you may have seen our 2020 reading challenges video went up recently and we’ve gotten some great feedback about our fifth challenge: Read a book completely outside of your house!

We are in a global pandemic and our #1 priority is keeping everyone safe and protecting our communities. Our challenges were made before countries started entering lockdowns and any of us knew what a “quarantine” really was but that doesn’t mean we can’t make it better! Based on your feedback we’ve stopped doing challenges that require owning lots of books because we understand that it isn’t realistic for everyone: this is another great moment for us to learn about being more accommodating for our more physical challenges.

One of our favourite parts of the Reading Rush is seeing your creativity in adapting and changing the challenges to fit your different situations. (Remember our “take a photo of your book with a pet” challenge where people started using stuffed animals instead? Iconic!) We know that this challenge can be done in a safe way and it’s all about us getting together to brainstorm fun hacks! Maybe listen to an audiobook on your daily walk, sit in front of an open window, put on an “outdoor sounds video”, adapt the challenge to “read a book set completely outside a house” or “read a book with the word “outside” in the title”! Or, of course, feel free to skip this challenge completely. The only way to win the Reading Rush is to read and these challenges are just for added fun. If this isn’t fun or isn’t possible for you to remix this year skip it! Whatever we do, let’s do it together and by staying safe!

We want to see your ideas! Use the hashtag #readingrushhack to show us what you’re doing to accomplish this challenge in a way that works for you. We’ll be following your ideas and making a post soon sharing solutions for everyone. In a few days when our forums are up we’ll also have a thread there to discuss our different takes on this challenge. We want to encourage everyone to wear masks, to socially distance, and to be creative with us as we find ways to adapt to being in a pandemic.

We’re always trying to learn and find the best ways to be a readathon you love. Thanks to everyone who messaged us with the intention of helping us be a more inclusive event and to everyone who will share with us the ways they are reshaping this challenge!