Reading Challenges
The Once Upon a Pen Fairy Tale Book Awards celebrate the best in fairy tale, myth, legend, and classic literature retellings and I figured it might be fun to create a challenge with prompts for each category.
This challenge is for reading a variety of books containing different Paranormal Beings / Creatures in them during the year 2026.
The site Indie Story Geek (https://indiestorygeek.com/) hosts an award at the end of the year for marginalized authors, self-published books, and books by small presses often get overlooked. I figured it would be nice to have a challenge that corresponded with the award so when voting season comes around it would be easy to see what books read throughout the year qualify.
Read one new release each month for 2026. Each book must be published in the corresponding month. Translations of previously published books count, but re-releases or special editions of books published before do not.
The Risingshadow 2026 reading challenge is designed to inspire readers to explore a wide variety of themes and genres, especially those familiar from speculative fiction. Take on the challenge and step into the fascinating worlds of stories, adventures that will invigorate both the heart and the mind!
The Goodreads 2026 ATY (Around the Year in 52 Books) Reading Challenge is a community-driven reading challenge hosted annually by an active Goodreads group. The goal of the challenge is to inspire readers to explore a broad and diverse range of books by completing 52 themed prompts—one for each week of the year. These prompts are carefully crafted to encourage variety and discovery, ranging from themes like "a book published in 2026" to more specific ideas such as "a collection of short stories or essays" or "a book set prior to 1925."
This Challenge is to try to read a book with a title starting with each letter of the alphabet.
The Risingshadow 2025 reading challenge is designed to inspire readers to explore a wide variety of themes and genres, especially those familiar from speculative fiction. Since the year is already well underway, we're kicking off Risingshadow's first reading challenge with 25 challenge tasks. Take on the challenge and step into the fascinating worlds of stories—adventures that will invigorate both the heart and the mind!
The Goodreads 2025 ATY (Around the Year in 52 Books) Reading Challenge is a community-driven reading challenge hosted annually by an active Goodreads group. The goal of the challenge is to inspire readers to explore a broad and diverse range of books by completing 52 themed prompts—one for each week of the year. These prompts are carefully crafted to encourage variety and discovery, ranging from themes like "a book published in 2025" to more specific ideas such as "a collection of short stories or essays" or "a book set prior to 1925."
The POPSUGAR Reading Challenge is a popular yearly initiative that encourages readers to step out of their comfort zones and explore new types of books. Each year, it offers a creative list of prompts designed to inspire more diverse and engaging reading experiences. The 2025 challenge continues this tradition with a fresh set of 50 imaginative prompts centered around the theme of transformation.
This is a challenge for getting into the fall/autumn/harvest season mood.
I pulled most of the prompts from a few challenges on StoryGraph.
A Private Facebook group called Clean Fairytales is hosting a Fairy Tale Summer reading challenge from June 1 - July 31, 2025 centered around No Spice Fairy Tales and includes a Featured Books List with many books sorted by Fairy Tale on it.
This challenge is for reading a variety of books containing different Paranormal Beings / Creatures in them during the year 2025.
This Challenge is to try to read a book with a title starting with each letter of the alphabet.