Above: Mead’s Bookish Bingo Challenge bingo card. Pick up a copy at the first floor desk or download and print your own HERE.
Returning to work or school after the holidays can be such a complete bummer. Pour some social distancing fatigue, light sedition, and general pandemic horror on top of that and welcome yourself to 2021, or The Year We Hope Won’t Totally Suck. What do we do, however, to get ourselves to look forward and not back? How do we make it through another freezing and drab Wisconsin winter after all that? It is with pleasure that I announce my new favorite distraction: Mead’s Bookish Bingo Challenge. Here’s how it works:
List your title, used only once, and submit your completed Bingo – down, across or diagonal – to publicservices@meadpl.org or in-person at Mead Public Library to receive a small prize and an additional entry in the Summer Library Program drawing for your first Bingo. If you complete the Bingo card, and submit it by December 31, 2021, you will be entered into a drawing for a surprise gift.
Who doesn’t love FABULOUS PRIZES?
Bingo cards consist of twenty five unique challenges designed to show off the awesome range of Mead Library’s services as well as expand personal reading horizons. Complete a row, a diagonal, or the whole card! Pick up your Bookish Bingo Challenge card at the first floor desk or download a copy to print at home HERE.
If you love this reading challenge and want more, I assure you we are not the only game in town. Take a look at Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge, which is a perennial favorite among avid readers. Check out 2021’s challenge HERE. I also found an aggregate list of 2021 reading challenges HERE. There are so many, it seems there’s something to suit everyone’s tastes.
Goodreads: It ain’t perfect, but it’s free.
Would you like more guidance/ community surrounding your Mead Bookish Bingo Challenge? Join our Goodreads page HERE to see what everyone else has been reading and to leave your own feedback and thoughts.
Mead’s Bookish Bingo Challenge includes several literary terms that some might not be familiar with. Listed below is a quick guide to some acronyms and vocabulary found within the bingo card. This breakdown is also included on the printable PDF copy of the bingo card.
Key of Terms
BIPOC = Black, Indigenous, and People of Color
NAFNIP = Native, Aboriginal, First Nations, Indigenous People
LGBTQIA+ = Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Pansexual, Transgender, Genderqueer, Queer, Intersexed, Agender, Asexual, and Ally community
STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math
Bildungsroman = a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood (coming of age), in which character change is important.
Epistolary = a literary work in the form of letters
Links to all of Mead’s digital services mentioned on the Bingo card are listed at the bottom of the printable PDF. If you feel unsure about how to use one of these resources, please do not hesitate to contact us. We love promoting this cool stuff almost as much as we love helping people learn how to use it.
Links to Access:
Kanopy
Overdrive/Libby
RB Digital
Mead Public Library Blog
Reference Solutions
Rosetta Stone
Mead Radio
Mead Public Library YouTube Channel
Watch the Mead Blog for posts highlighting specific squares of the bingo card throughout the coming months. And don’t forget: you’re just a phone call away from book recommendations and tech troubleshooting help.
Mead Public Library Blog 