Middle Grade Madness! discussion
August MG Reading Challenge 2023
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Captain's Chat
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- There are 3 different sheet tabs.
1. Official Challenge Sheet
- This is the main one.
- All points auto-populate so you don’t have to calculate anything yourself. Just fill in the right boxes and points will appear. Please don’t mess with the points coding! If you do by accident or you think it’s not working properly please let me know, don’t try and fix it yourself because all the coding is linked and some of it is so complicated I'm honestly surprised I managed to make it work!
- Please use the British date method for filling in the start and finished read boxes like dd/mm/yy NOT the American method. Check out the Example Sheet for reference.
2. Tracking Sheet
- This is informal and optional, you don’t have to use it but it’ll make things easier for you and your team so I recommend you do.
- All the boxes align with the Official Challenge Sheet so you can copy paste the whole row from the Tracking Sheet into the Challenge Sheet to save you time.
3. Example of Challenge Sheet
- This is just a duplicate of the Official Challenge Sheet with a few rows filled in to show you how you should fill in the Official Challenge Sheet.
It's up to each Captain and Sub-captain on how they divide the responsibility, but please remember as Captain that it's mainly your responsibility to make sure the spreadsheet is up to date but that doesn't mean you have to do everything!
If you're ok with it then you can allow your team members to fill in the Official Tracking Sheet if they want to.
I always like to let my team members fill in the Tracking Sheet themselves if they want to and then only I as Captain handle the Official Tracking Sheet. But there are many different ways to be in charge so make sure to discuss it with your team members where necessary.
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1. The character name chosen for your team name has to be their full name.
For example: it wouldn’t be Team Harry it would be Team Harry Potter.
There only exception to this is when the character doesn’t have a last name like in the past we’ve had Team Charlotte name after the spider Charlotte in the book Charlotte’s Web and she doesn’t have a last name so just Charlotte was fine.
2. Each team will pick a category they would like to be revealed and those 3 categories closed will be revealed to all the teams.
Teams can’t choose the same category so if 2 teams pick the same number, the second team to pick that number will have to choose a different category.
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Once your team have decided on a name and picked a number please let me know here!
Team C number is 3. We’ll let you know our team name in the next day or two 🙂
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Hey Kadi!Our team (B) has picked Anthony Lockwood (Lockwood & Co) and number 13.
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2 quick things to note:
1. Character and protagonists are not the same thing!
If the task says protagonist, it means the protagonist and not just any character.
For example: Harry Potter is a character in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and he is also the protagonist.
Ron Weasley is a character in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone but he's not the protagonist of the book.
2. Please make sure the books are classed as MG or MG+ on this website:
And books can only be started on 1st August!
I know everyone is in different time zones so it's whenever it is 1st for each individual member.
64. A book with a number in the title. Does it have 3 or three (As an example) ? Or do both count?14. A book with a protagonist whose name has 9 or more letters. First and last name equal 9 or more? Or can it just be first and or surname with nine letters?
Edit. It does. Thank you.
Mod
It can be any number. It can be written either as a number like: 3 or 9 or 7, etc OR written in words like: three or nine or thirteen, etc.
14. A book with a protagonist whose name has 9 or more letters. First and last name equal 9 or more? Or can it just be first and or surname with nine letters?"
Either the first name is 9 letters long or the last name is 9 letters long or they're both 9 letters long. It can't be any middle names.
You can't add any of the names together to equal 9 letters.
Hope that helps!
Mod
2 quick things to note:
1. Character and protagonists are not the same thing!
If the task says protagonist, it means the protagon..."
Something else I forgot to mention, in case your team members want to claim tasks from the get go etc, this year it's a bit different from last year.
Bonus points are given based on the number of people it takes to complete a category.
So if 1 person completes a category alone = 10 bonus points
2 people complete a category together = 20 points
3 people = 30
4 people = 40
5 people = 50
I'm pretty sure I put this in the rules but I just wanted to make it clear because I know last year and even the year before because the points were different we would all use the strategy of claiming a whole category and 1 person reads the whole category.
I thought this year it would be nice to spin that on it's head and try it the other way!
Hey Kadi!One team member has this book:
by Jen Calonita.They checked on the website but she says it's not there.
However, if you check the book on ŷ, it says Middle Grade as the first genre.
Can she safely use it?
Mod
- Jen Calonita writes mostly MG and MG+ books.
- The protagonist is (mostly) 12
- it’s tagged as middle grade on goodreads
So it’s fine!
A book with a title that has no more than four vowels: Can it be under 4 vowels, or has to have at least 4?One of my teammates asked "Does Kadi wants us to note what number we are because it's relevant to some of the prompts?" For example I'm number one if I complete task number 1 myself will I get more points?
I don't think that this is true but, it's always something to consider for next year. 😁
For "A book set in a forest" Is it okay if is mostly set in a forest? The protagonists have fun in the forest then have to go back home and school. They love going to the forest everyday.
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It can be under 4 vowels or exactly 4. But it can’t be over 4!
One of my teammates asked "Does Kadi wants us to note what number we are because it's relevant to some of the prompts?" For example I'm number one if I complete task number 1 myself will I get more points?
I don't think that this is true but, it's always something to consider for next year. 😁
No we’re not doing anything with the numbers this year like we did last year where some of the tasks referred to team member’s numbers. I just used them to organise the number of members in each team this year.
I love that idea though about double points for certain categories depending on your assigned number. I’m definitely noting that down as an idea for next year!
For "A book set in a forest" Is it okay if is mostly set in a forest? The protagonists have fun in the forest then have to go back home and school. They love going to the forest everyday.
It has to be that the forest is featured enough that it is considered the main setting. If characters go to other places, that’s fine, as long as the majority of the book is set in the forest.
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Mannat and Amy have told me that they haven't revived their spreadsheets yet. P.S. I have asked them to check their spam folders
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Would a choose your own adventure book count for this challenge?Like Case Closed #1: Mystery in the Mansion
Edit: Amy got her spreadsheet!
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I guess technically it does have all the requirements needed to class as an mg book, so it would count. But if the person reading it only reads the path they choose then they can only put the number of pages down on the spreadsheet as the number of pages they specifically read and not the entire book’s number of pages, which could be hard to count.
So the only way a choose your own adventure novel could count for the challenge is if you read the entire book with all the choices you can make and not just the one pathway that you choose.
Hopefully you get what I mean by that!
I do! I thought that might be your respondA book with four characters on the cover: does it have to be exactly 4, or are more than 4 ok?
A book with a character named after a geographical location (like a city or state?)
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Yeah city or state or even town, country, continent, etc. Names like: London, Paris, India, Asia, that kind of thing. Can be a first name or last name. Once again, middle names don’t count!
Hey Kadi!For the prompt nr. 31: A book with a tree on the cover: Does it count if there are more trees?
Hey Kadi!One of the teammates wants to know if this book works for prompt 50:
Thank you! :)
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You got it, Kadi!Mannat: Got her Email.
A book with a protagonist who is searching for their birth parent(s): The protagonist is looking for her mom, who suddenly left her & her father. It's not an 'adoption find your birth parent', but it seems like the goal is similar.
A book originally published in a non-English language: Doe it have to be read in English? My teammates are from other countries and can read in others languages besides English.
Would a brain injury count as a head injury?
Does working for the mob make you a villain?
A book with a protagonist who daydreams a lot: My MC loves spending all his time living in fantasy worlds and writing extensively planned adventure campaigns in his role-playing-game notebook.
A book with a character who dies: If a person in the book passed away before the book started but the person is missed by the protagonist. Would that count?
A taxidermied animal who comes alive in the story & lives with the protagonist - a pet or no?
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Yes this is fine. Task 5 is about adoption so I made this task more broad because I didn't want it to be a repeat and so it's just about the search for a lost/missing/deserter parent etc.
A book originally published in a non-English language: Doe it have to be read in English? My teammates are from other countries and can read in others languages besides English.
Yes it can be read in any language as long as the book was first originally published in a language that wasn't English.
Would a brain injury count as a head injury?
Scientifically no but for this task yes. Lol!
Does working for the mob make you a villain?
It depends what kind of role they have in the mob, I guess. Like if they're just a delivery person for the mob then no, but if they are like a high ranking person in the mob who makes the actual decisions or important actions or like a henchman then yes.
A book with a protagonist who daydreams a lot: My MC loves spending all his time living in fantasy worlds and writing extensively planned adventure campaigns in his role-playing-game notebook.
Yeah this counts.
A book with a character who dies: If a person in the book passed away before the book started but the person is missed by the protagonist. Would that count?
No they have to die in the book. Even if the actual death is off-page it's fine but the death has to be part of the plot and something that happens within the story as that would be that character's end (which fits with the category's theme of endings)
A taxidermied animal who comes alive in the story & lives with the protagonist - a pet or no?
I guess we have to look at what makes a pet a pet. Does the protagonist feed the animal? Is the animal free to leave and never come back without the protagonist going looking for it?
If the answer is no to the first one and yes to the second then the animal is not really a pet. Granted, some people don't look after pets that way, but hopefully you can get the gist of what I mean. Like you have to ask yourself: if I was the protagonist would I consider that animal a pet?
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Mannat: Got her Email.
A book with a protagonist who is searching for their birth parent(s): The protagonist is looking for her mom, who suddenly left her & her father. It's not an..."
Oh sorry I did see this when it was originally sent, I was just taking an age to type my reply. Sometimes the questions make me think! But it's cool to see how the tasks can be approached from different angles and even bring up stuff I never considered
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One of the teammates wants to know if this book works for prompt 50:
Thank you! :)"
Yep it does! That book is on my tbr and I have no idea when I added it but it looks great!
What if the book says "the end" but there's an epilogue after?
would that count as a blue cover?
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I think that's really odd. Usually a book would say "the end" or "le fin" or any other language version of "the end" after the epilogue. If it says "the end" and then has the epilogue after that then it wasn't really the end was it? False advertising from the writer😂 I don't think that could count for the task, unfortunately.
But is your team member sure it was an epilogue and not an afterword? If it was an afterword then it is fine and the book counts.
would that count as a blue cover?"No that wouldn't count, the blue colour needs to be the main colour of the cover.
I suggest using this website: if it's difficult to determine from the cover because there's lots of different colours on the cover. The cover should be 50% (or more) blue or it doesn't count for this task. Same for the red cover task.
As you can see from here: this cover is about 10% blue.
But if the colour extractor is showing less than 50% blue but blue is the main colour of the cover then it can still count. For example, this cover
clearly has blue as it's main colour so even if it has less than 50% blue according to the colour extractor it would still be allowed for this task.I hope that doesn't overcomplicate it for you, it's just a case of blue being the main colour of the cover and being the majority of it.
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I hope everyone has been having fun so far. It feels like the days are flying by!
Kadi wrote: "Hey captains/sub-captains! I’m going to be sharing the points spreadsheet with everyone on the 5th, so no pressure but I know some members have their competitive boots on, so the points spreadsheet..."Sure Kadi! So far, we are enjoying the challenge and we're having fun:)
Bring it on, Kadi! Yes the days are just flying byHow strict is the definition of 'teacher'? If a grandfather who is a professional lifeguard teaches his grandkid to swim, is he a teacher?
How strict is the definition of "after midnight"? A few scenes in this book happen at night, past midnight. 1 around dawn, 2 (two scenes) when it's still dark...?
Is a 'regular' lake considered underground because it's lower than the land around it?
A book with a character that is a bird: does the bird have to be a POV character?
Hi Kadi! One of our members asked these questions:)Do invention/innovation "races" count for 16#76? There is definite competition & the world/global audience is like a judge. For example, the 1960s "space race", 1900s "airplane race", etc
Also, does an animal giving affection & then being taken away count as "saying goodbye"? The animal doesn't actually say anything but it seems to give the same vibe.
10#47 is written differently than 7#32. Does the underground need to be a primary setting or is a scene in a legit French dungeon sufficient?
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No
No
And even though they’re written differently, they’re the same idea so they can have other settings but the underground must be the main setting and your example doesn’t count.
Hope that helps!
Kadi wrote: "@Patricia in answer to your questions:No
No
And even though they’re written differently, they’re the same idea so they can have other settings but the underground must be the main setting and your..."
Thanks!
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How strict is the definition of 'teacher'? If a grandfather who is a professional lifeguard teaches his grandkid to swim, is he a teacher?
It's not teacher in the generic sense as in someone who teaches things. That task is meant to be about someone who has the profession of a teacher, like their job is being a teacher. So unfortunately, that example wouldn't count.
How strict is the definition of "after midnight"? A few scenes in this book happen at night, past midnight. 1 around dawn, 2 (two scenes) when it's still dark...?
I would say that book counts then. This task basically focuses on that period of time in between midnight and sunrise, so dawn would count then as that's the time just before sunrise. This one is not very specific, it's just that general time period of midnight to sunrise where it's very late and still dark outside.
Is a 'regular' lake considered underground because it's lower than the land around it?
Haha nice try! Very inventive out-of-the-box thinking! Alas, that wouldn't count. It has to be actually under the ground. Like a tunnel or technically an underground parking place or other kind of underground floor of a building would also count, like a bunker or something.
A book with a character that is a bird: does the bird have to be a POV character?
Nope! They don't have to talk or have a narrative, they just have to feature enough to be considered a character like Hedwig in Harry Potter or Bridget the pigeon in the Blackthorn Key series.
It's okay. I rarely use the app due to the difficulty of it.
“a book that is the penultimate book in a series�, would The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis count? Technically it was the 4th out of 7 to be published. But, publishers often rearrange the order of the books in the series so that they can be read in chronological order and my copy of the book says it is number 6 out of 7.
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Does "THE END!"(For Now...)
Count for task 100?
Does it matter if the book literally says "the end" or is "that ends the story of [protagonist]" sufficient? I don't know any Swedish or Swedish storytelling customs, but this may be the equivalent of "the end" in that language, which is the language Pippi Longstocking was originally written in
Task #70 Does 'The' at the beginning of a title always count? 'The castle of tangled magic' would be catalogued & shelved as 'Castle of tangled magic, The' (if only considering the title) at a bookstore or library. Castle also starts with the same letter as Chara, so it would be convenient if every 'The' at the beginning of every book title didn't have to count.
28 Does it count if a narrator is sometimes an animal (shapeshifter)?
#66 Does it count if there are more than 2 authors?
#72 If there's a cat-dragon on the cover is it still a cat?
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1. Yes that counts as long as there’s no other chapters or epilogue etc after the �(for now...)�.
2. No, that doesn’t count. Books can be read in non-English languages so if for example you read Pippi Longstocking in Swedish and it said “the end� at the end in the Swedish language then that would count. But if the translated version doesn’t say “the end� then the translated version doesn’t count because for task 100 it needs to literally say “the end� and then the book has to stop.
3. You can count the “The� or discount it. Same with “A� or “An� if the book title starts with that.
4. No because even though it sometimes looks like an animal, in reality it is always a shapeshifter.
5. Yes
6. No it has to be just a cat
I realise I probably seem super erratic in the way I decide what counts and what doesn’t but I swear there is a logic to it! Thanks for always clarifying first guys😊
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Please feel free to share with your team members.
HI Kadi!#92 Does a combination lock like the ones on school lockers count as a gear/cog since it operates as one?
#89 If a character's name until the last page is 'grandfather' in another language but it's unclear whether he actually is a grandfather or just has the character of one, does that count?
(I didn't know what "Deda" meant until the book ended & I read the glossary.)
Two of my teammates have gone AWOL. Should I DM them? What's the protocol here?
Middle Grade Madness!
Books mentioned in this topic
Famous Mistakes (other topics)The Compass of the Stars (other topics)
Famous Mistakes (other topics)
Kristy's Big Day (other topics)
The Losers Club (other topics)
More...
The Captains & Sub-Captains:
Team Diana Barry - Kadi (me) - Captain
Team Diana Barry - Alexa - Sub-Captain
Team Anthony Lockwood - Dana - Captain
Team Anthony Lockwood - Audrey - Sub-captain
Team Remus Lupin - Chara - Captain
Team Remus Lupin - Patricia - Sub-captain
If you or your team members have any questions (that aren’t addressed in the rules) please feel free to ask them here so I can answer them.
I’ll also be using this space to announce stuff like the Bonus Tasks and other updates so keep an eye on this topic!