Once Upon A Time update

Believe it or not, the middle of June is nearly here, and that is the deadline to finish the Once Upon A Time Challenge. In April I published a list of books I thought I would be reading for the challenge, but only 2 of those books stood the test of time. (I tried to read The Mists of Avalon right after being heartily annoyed by Waiting For Odysseus, and gave it up for awhile. Instead, I'm reading a much shortened version of King Arthur to my younger kids, and that's going to have to be good enough. I couldn't finish City of Fallen Angels either. So here's where I stand:

For fairy tales: A Tale Dark and Grimm
For fantasy: Eyes Like Stars and Alcatraz and the Shattered Lens
For mythology: Waiting For Odysseus
For folktales: King Arthur (Not finished yet)
And I haven't even started reading: A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is sort of the point of the whole contest.
Plus I've got to watch the movie!!!! Lots of work to do. I think I'd better give up house cleaning for a while. :^)

30 Day Blog Challenge--Day 28: What's Next?

OK, I admit it. I made this one up. The 30 Day List included several topics that didn't interest me at all. I did a few of them anyway, and oddly enough, some of those have turned into my most popular posts. Life can be strange, indeed.

But I've been making a list of books to read for the Once Upon A Time Challenge, and I thought you might be interested. I have several back-up choices if these books aren't as good as they sound, so I reserve the right to change my mind.

Here's a challenge for you. I just talked myself out of my mythology choice and need a new one. I think I've read almost everything good there is to read in the "Novels Based on Mythology" section. Can you help me find one?

The hardest part of the challenge so far has been deciding what I think the differences between folklore, mythology and fairy tales are. To me, mythology would be the stories people use to describe great events--creation and disaster stories, gods and the stories that surround them. Fairy tales are the stories with magic. But I've been pulling my hair out trying to figure out how folktales differ from the other two. Folk tales are the tales of a culture passed down orally through stories. Yikes. It's not so much a line between the categories as a gray blur, but I think I've got it figured out for the purposes of this challenge anyway.

My choices:

For Folktales: Something Arthurian. I've never read the Mists of Avalon or The Winter King, which suddenly seems like a gaping hole in my reading repertoire. Any opinions one way or the other would be lovely.

For fairy tales:

Fantasy will be supremely easy. I can grab just about anything off my to-read pile:

And of course:

Once Upon A Time Challenge

My 30 Day Blog Challenge will be ending any day now, and I'm oh so ready to move on. I've got a couple of great post ideas left, but these last few post topics have definitely taxed my creativity. On the other hand, I love the 30 Day Challenge idea...since I haven't quite found my blogging niche yet, it makes sense to try on some different hats for 30 days at a time (well 30 days that stretch into 40 or 45 if you factor in all the days I take off :).

For my next 30 day challenge, I thought I might review 30 books in 30 days. Unfortunately, I can't read 30 books in 30 days (Oh, you know I could. But I promised my family I wouldn't do that to them) so some of them will have to be from memory. I go to my favorite reading blogs every day, hoping for a new post, so the idea of a book reviewing blog appeals to me. I'd especially love to review books teenage boys would enjoy, since they are so hard to find. (The niche is slowly filling up, but perusing the Young Adult section at Barnes and Noble is an eye opening experience. They might as well put up a sign that says "Teenage Girl Section."

But I digress...I don't even know where I was when I stumbled upon the 5th Annual Once Upon A Time Challenge,but I think it will dovetail nicely with my 30 Book Reviews In A Month (Or So) idea. Here's the plan:

The Once Upon A Time challenge runs from March 21 through June 20. As you can see, I'm already getting a late start, but that's alright, since I can choose a journey level.

Level 1: Read 5 books that fit into these categories: fantasy, folklore, fairy tale or mythology.

Level 2: Read at least one book from each of those categories.

Level 3: Fulfill the requirements for Quest the First or Quest the Second AND top it off with a June reading of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream OR a viewing of one of the many theatrical versions of the play.

There are a few more levels, but they involve non-fiction treatises about fantasy, folklore, fairy tales or mythology, so I'm not even going to bother to post them. There IS a Quest On Screen that looks interesting...I just need to blog about movies that fit into these categories.

So there it is...I love Shakespeare, and most of the books I read already fit into one of those categories, so I'm challenging myself to do Journey Level 3. Now back to our regularly scheduled Challenges...