Announcing the Beauty and the Beast Readathon!

 

Happy Saturday, everyone! I am so excited to announce that next month I will be hosting my second readathon: the Beauty and the Beast Readathon! #BATBathon will run from Saturday, March 9, through Sunday, March 17. The goal: to read as many Beauty and the Beast retellings as you can! Let's get into the details.

WHAT

The Beauty and the Beast Readathon is exactly what it sounds like—a readathon specifically for retellings of the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale. I'm a huge fan BatB stories, and many of my favorites books over the past several years have fallen into this category: Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge, the A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas, and Of Beast and Beauty by Stacey Jay, to name a few. My TBR list of BatB retellings is continually growing, and I thought a readathon would be a fun way to tackle a small portion of that list and maybe discover even more books in the process!

So what can you read for the challenge? Basically anything related to Beauty and the Beast! Any format counts (physical, e-book, audiobook, manga, graphic novel, short story, etc.) and any genre and audience level count. If you want to read a bunch of BatB picture books, go for it! If you want to read strictly adult fiction, go for it! If you want to read a mix YA, adult, and picture books—you guessed it—go for it!

Also, when many of us think of Beauty and the Beast, we probably think of the Jean-Marie Leprince de Beaumont fairy tale (the version that Disney's Beauty and the Beast is based on). However, this readathon is open to all Beauty and Beast-esque stories from around the world, such as the Norwegian "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" or the Greek myths of Hades and Persephone and Cupid and Psyche.

HOW

There are two ways to participate in the readathon. You can freestyle it and read any BatB retellings you want, or if you want more of a challenge (or just a way to narrow your reading selections), you can follow along with these prompts.

GET INVOLVED

When posting about the readathon on Twitter or Instagram, be sure to use the hashtag #BATBathon. To make the event a little more interactive, you can also particpate in the bookstagram photo challenge using the prompts below. They're pretty open-ended, so feel free to get creative! 

Over the next week, I'll be asking participants via Twitter and Instagram to submit reading recommendations, and as we get closer to March 9, I'll post a Suggested Reading list with everyone's recommendations for those of you who aren't sure what you want to include in your TBR or need help finding retellings. In the meantime, you can check out my BatB retellings shelf on Goodreads, which includes some of my favorites as well as ones I want to read.

I'm also considering hosting a movie watchalong of the animated 1991 Disney movie, the 2017 live action Disney movie, or the 2014 live action French movie (which is gorgeous, by the way), but the date of this specific event is TBD. I'll post a Twitter poll the week leading up to the readathon to gauge people's interest and get a feel for what the best date and time would be.

That about wraps up the announcement post! I hope you'll join me for a week of fairy-tale goodness! I can't wait to see all of your reading recommendations. Let me know in the comments if you'll be participating, what your favorite BatB retelling is, and what you plan on reading. :)

Countdown to Christmas: Seven Days - Favorite Christmas Movies

Christmas is my favorite time of the year, and since we're just one week away from the big day, I wanted to do a series of posts for every day leading up to it to share some of the things I love most about the season! So, without further ado, welcome to day one of Countdown to Christmas! Today's topic: my favorite Christmas movies!

Home Alone 2

This has always been my favorite of the Home Alone duology. (I absolutely refuse to acknowledge the existence of Home Alone 3 or any other spin-offs. If it doesn't have Macauly Culkin, it ain't Home Alone, people!) When I was little, I loved watching Kevin explore his room in the Plaza Hotel, open that giant cabinet full of candy and cookies, ride in a limousine with his very own pizza while watching The Grinch, and exploring the wonderland that was Duncan's Toy Chest.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

The thing I remember most about watching this movie as a kid was how funny I thought it was. I seriously thought it was the most hilarious movie ever. I loved all the Grinch's funny quips, especially his voicemail message: "If you utter so much as one syllable, I'LL HUNT YOU DOWN AND GUT YOU LIKE A FISH! If you'd like to fax me, press the star key." I would crack up at this part every single time (and I still do)!

Christmas Vacation

I never get tired of watching Christmas Vacation. Like the Grinch, there are so many hilarious moments. When I lived in Indiana, we started the tradition of going to see Christmas Vacation at this little renovated movie theater that was in a small town about twenty minutes from where I used to live. They hold screenings of it the weekend before Christmas, and people go dressed up as their favorite characters and shout their favorite lines in time with the movie. It became one of my favorite things to do, and I'm really sad I wasn't be able to go this year.

The Holiday

This is such a fun, feel-good Christmas movie! And the soundtrack by Hans Zimmer is awesome. Oh yeah, and Jude Law is pretty darn adorable too. ;)

Love Actually

Apparently, over the last couple of years, it's become the new "cool" thing to do to hate on Love Actually. Whatever. I don't really get why people are such grouches (or should I say grinches?) about it, but I still love this movie despite its flaws. Bill Nighy's character is so freaking hilarious, and I love the stories about Jamie and Aurelia and Sam and his stepdad (whose name is escaping me at the moment). Plus, let's be real: it's worth watching just for that Hugh Grant dance scene alone.

A Christmas Story

If there ever comes a day when TBS no longer does the 24-hour marathon of A Christmas Story, my heart will break. I absolutely have to watch it all the way through at least once (preferably the first time it plays on Christmas Eve) and then have it on in the background until it ends on Christmas night. There were many Christmas Eves as a kid when I would be too excited about Santa to fall asleep, so I'd turn on my TV and watch A Christmas Story until I finally crashed.

The Family Stone

You know how some movies just give you a cozy feeling when you watch them? That's how I feel when watching The Family Stone. It's funny and bittersweet and filled with holiday family drama, and even though it's a bit sad at the end, it's a comforting movie for me. And the soundtrack by Michael Giacchino is so pretty. Seriously, go listen to "A Big Red Shovel," "It's Snowing," and "A Very Good Tree" and tell me that they don't make you feel all warm and fuzzy but also kind of like you want to cry at the same time. (Damn it, I just listened to them and now I am crying!)

The Polar Express

So, for reasons I can't remember now, I totally hated The Polar Express the first time I saw it in the theater. I was in the eighth grade, so maybe chalk it up to being a surly teen. Lol. Now, though, whenever I watch it, I always get a huge lump in my throat at the end when the boy (all grown up) talks about how the time comes when his little sister can no longer hear the Christmas bell Santa gave to him. UGH! MY HEART!

Elf

This is another movie that I wasn't all that crazy about when I first saw it that has now become a must-watch every Christmas. Again, must have been in surly teenager mode at the time!

Love the Coopers

This is one of my more recent Christmas favorites. I love all the flashbacks in it and the folksy Christmas music they use. (Though I could do without the family sing-along montage in the middle. Ugh. So much secondhand embarrassment! Lol!) Also, there are, like, zero gifs for this movie, so here's the trailer.

Three Days

I think I must be the only person left who actually likes this movie because ABC Family/Freeform never plays it anymore, and you can't get it on DVD, much to my disappointment. If you've never heard of Three Days, it's a made-for-TV movie that came out in 2001 about a man named Andrew whose wife dies on Christmas Eve. Andrew is visited by an angel named Lionel shortly after, and Lionel gives Andrew the past three days to live over again so that he can prove his love to Beth, who died thinking Andrew had cheated on her (ANGST! DRAMA!). It's cheesy, but I love it so darn much, and I'm so mad that you literally can't buy it ANYWHERE! This movie is also gifless, probably because I'm the only person on the planet who likes it, lol!

George Ballanchine's The Nutcracker

When I was little, I was obsessed with The Nutcracker ballet. The first time I ever saw it was when I watched the 1993 movie version with Macaulay Culkin. I loved everything about it: the party scenes, the music, the costumes, the dancing (and little four-year-old Alex may have had a crush on Macaulay Culkin as the Nutcracker Prince). To this day, one of my favorite Christmas traditions is going to see the ballet live. I'll be going to see it this Saturday for the first time in a couple of years, and I can't wait!

Phew! That was a lot of movies! Now you all tell me what some of your favorites are!
And be sure to come back tomorrow for day two of Countdown to Christmas! :)

The House Cup Reading Challenge Sign Up

Welcome, welcome to the House Cup Reading Challenge! I along with my lovely co-hosts, Lauren of Live, Love, Read, Erica of Escape Under the  Cover, and Kelsey of Kelsey's Cluttered Bookshelf, invite you to join us for a month-long competition to tackle our TBR lists! As a total HP nerd, I am so excited to be hosting this challenge and hope that you all have as much fun participating as we've had planning it!

What Is the House Cup Reading Challenge?

The House Cup Reading Challenge runs from Sunday, October 15, to Sunday, November 12. During this challenge, you will progress from a first-year to seventh-year Hogwarts student by completing seven books on your TBR list. In addition to the main challenge, you will have opportunities to earn even more points by participating in the themed bonus challenges and tweeting with the challenge hashtag on Twitter. But more on that later! 

How It Works

First, you'll need to choose your Hogwarts house. During the challenge, you'll not only be earning points for yourself but for your Hogwarts house as well. At the end of the challenge, each reader should report their points to their house's Head Girl:

Gryffindor: Lauren @BetweenDPages

Hufflepuff: Kelsey @Kelsenator

Ravenclaw: Alex @booksydaisy

Slytherin: Erica @slychica08

Here's how we're determining the winners:

 4 Individual House Winners
One winner will be chosen from each of the four Hogwarts houses. The person who earns the most points for their house will receive:
$5 Starbucks gift card and some HP-themed goodies (stickers, bookmarks, etc.)

1 House Cup Grand Prize Winner
Here's where the House Cup challenge really comes into play! At the end of the challenge, we will randomly select one grand prize winner from the Hogwarts house with the most points overall. This lucky winner will receive:
A Harry Potter Funko Pop figure and a $25 giftcard to Barnes and Noble

**In the case of an international winner, that person will receive an e-gift card to The Book Depository.** 

**PLEASE NOTE: Because we will need winners to provide us with their addresses in order to send out the prizes, you must be 18 years or older to be eligible to win.**

Challenge Events

To kick off the challenge, we'll be hosting a Twitter chat starting at 8:00 p.m. EST to give everybody a chance to introduce themselves, talk about the competition, and answer some Harry Potter trivia questions. Be sure to follow along with the #housecupreadingchallenge hashtag.

At the end of the challenge, we'll also be hosting a watch-along of one of the Harry Potter movies (to be decided via Twitter poll). We'll have more details about this as we get closer to the end of the challenge.

Challenge Categories and Points Breakdown

Main Challenge (20 points each)

Not everyone likes to be confined to a specific category, so we've decided that all books for the main challenge are reader's choice. This means you can pick any book off your TBR list to count toward the main challenge!

First Year: reader’s choice

Second Year: reader’s choice

Third Year: reader’s choice

Fourth Year: reader’s choice

Fifth Year: reader’s choice

Sixth Year: reader’s choice

Seventh Year: reader’s choice

Bonus Challenges (10 points each)

For those who like categories to help narrow down their reading choices, here are thirteen bonus challenges to choose from. However, books you read for the bonus challenges cannot count toward the main challenge! For example,  if you pick The Hunger Games for the Slytherin bonus challenge (read a dystopian book), you cannot also count it toward your second-year challenge.

Gryffindor: Read a book with an epic hero/heroine

Hufflepuff: Read a book that contains a strong friendship 

Ravenclaw: Read a book that revolves around a mystery

Slytherin: Read a book set in a dystopian world 

Astronomy Class: Read a book set in outer space

Care of Magical Creatures: Read a book that features an animal or magical/mythical creature

Tri-Wizard Tournament: Read a book that includes a competition

Occlumency: Read a book about a character with magical abilities or superpowers

Death Eater: Read a book told from the POV of a villain

Platform 9 3/4: Read a book that features travel

Time Turner: Read a book set in the future or past

Fantastic Beasts: Read a spin-off to a beloved series

Dumbledore’s Army: Buddy-read a book with a friend or group

Social Media Bonus Points

Use the hashtag #housecupreadingchallenge on Twitter to earn 1 point per tweet (limited to 20 points total). 

How to Sign Up

Think you're ready to take on the House Cup Reading Challenge? Awesome! To sign up, grab your house badge below, create a sign-up post on your blog with your challenge TBR list and, if you want, your answers to the questionnaire below. Once you've made your post, be sure to link it back to us using the Inlinkz widget below (or on any of my fellow co-hosts' blogs). We await your owl no later than October 14! ;) Happy reading!

Hogwarts Student Questionnaire

Name:
Hogwarts House:
Wand Type:
Pet:
Favorite Subject:
Favorite Professor:

We can't wait to see you on October 15 at 8:00 p.m. EST for the challenge kick-off Twitter chat!