Ari declared he wanted the Storygraph app on his iPad after he saw me track my reading in it. He’s a mathematical kid, so he loved geeking out in the stats tab of my Storygraph last year. Last December, I promised him that he could make a goal and start using it, besides Book Buddy, to track his reading as of January 1st. We had a goal-setting conversation that I remember going like this:
”How many books do you think you will read this year?” I asked Ari on New Year’s Day.
”How many did you read last year?” he asked me.
”68 tracked on the app. I don’t keep track of children’s books or teacher reading on Storygraph,” I replied.
”What was your goal?” Ari asked.
”60 books for last year. But what does that have to do with you? The books I read are much longer than yours,” I stated.
”I’m going to read 120 books this year,” Ari declared.
”Why?” I asked.
”If my books are shorter, then I should be able to read twice as many,” he reasoned.
”That doesn’t feel realistic. You’re going to start reading longer books as 2024 progresses. You may be reading Henry and Mudge now, but soon you’ll be reading much longer books.”
”I’m going to set my goal for 120 books,” he declared.
”Because that’s how long Moses lived?!” I paused when he didn’t crack a smile at the joke. “Seriously, that doesn’t feel like an achievable goal given how you’ve been progressing as a reader with the complexity of texts you read.”
”That’s what I want to do,” Ari declared. He typed in a goal of 120, saved it, and shut down Storygraph.
Guess who has been feeling poorly about how many books he’s behind by for the past month? That would be the one and only Ari! He went from Henry and Mudge to Commander Toad to Mercy Watson to Kung Pow Chicken to Charlie and Mouse to Nate the Great to Diary of a Pug to Henry Heckelbeck. And while he’s read over 40 books this year, Ari is behind where he needs to be if he’s going to stay on track with his reading goal.
Today, Ari declared his discontent.
”It says I’m seven books behind. I’m never going to read 120 books by the end of the year, am I?” he asked.
”Probably not,” I said. (I told you so, my inner child wanted to taunt, but I decided to keep adulting, so I stuffed that retort down deep.)
”What am I going to do?” Ari lamented.
”You could reset your books goal?” I offered.
He shook his head.
”You could do a pages goal,” I offered.
”What’s that?” Ari asked.
”A pages goal, which I’ve never done, is a goal you set for the number of pages you’ll read in a given year.”
Ari suggesated a proposterously large number for his 2024 pages goal. “Before you go with that, let’s look back at your number of books and pages chart for this year so far.”
Ari clicked on his stats page and noticed he’s read between 600-800 pages most months.
“Let’s take the lower number. Let’s say you plan to read 600 pages per month for the rest of the year. Over the course of 12 months, that should be about 7,200 pages. Do you think that is a realistic number of pages for you to read by December 31st?”
Ari contemplated for a moment. He said yes, and then set a pages goal. Of course, just to stretch himself a little more, he added a little onto that goal. As soon as he did, he discovered “I’m almost halfway to my pages goal for the year and it’s not even June!”
“What’s this other one?” Ari asked pointing to the hours goal.
”That’s for audiobooks,” I replied.
“I want one of those goals too.”
I showed Ari where to find his total amount of audiobook hours for the year. So far, he’s read .92 hours of audiobooks.
”You don’t read that many audiobooks,” I said.
Ari interrupted just as I was about to launch into a cautionary tale about setting an hours ago. “I think I’m going to start listening to more audio books.”
“How about 20 hours?” I said.
”Maybe a little more,” Ari said, typing a few more hours into the hours goal.
Ari discovered he’s 0% of the way towards his goal since he hasn’t read a full hour of audio books this year.
”I guess I need to start reading more audiobooks soon,” I said.
”I guess so…” I said wistfully.
”I’m only doing Storygraph now. No more Book Buddy.”
”If that’s what you want, just stick with Storygraph,” I called heading out of the room while Ari geeked out on his stats a bit more.
It seems I’m on a bit of a goal-setting kick this week. Here’s the link to my latest Tip for Tomorrow episode, on co-creating writing goals with students, that dropped today. You can listen Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Raising Literate Humans 
I admire your ability to keep “adulting,” Stacey! If it’s math that keeps him reading, let that math geek go wild!
I also was just thinking about how maybe an online book tracking tool might help me keep track of what I’ve read. I know I read a novel by Nell Freudenberger before —just finished her new one—but I can’t find my commentary about it in the indices of any of my journals…too tough to search completely. I may give Storygraph a try. Thanks.
It’s worth a look. I love the sense of accomplishment I get from looking at my stats.
Wow! Ari is really reading! I’m impressed and inspired by his motivation.
He’s had a good reading week… he started reading the PRESS START books on-his-own!
Stacey – This is so cool, and HOORAY for Ari! I hadn’t heard of storygraph now I’m going to geek out! Thanks!
Oh, it’s a total book nerd fest!
Hmm, you and Ari are inspiring me. For years I set a goal and tracked on Goodreads- this year and last I set a goal and have not tracked. Our school library is having a summer reading challenge where we read any 12 books- maybe that will start me again. Storyworth sounds fun!
It’s definitely worth a look. There’s something that feels smaller about Storygraph even though it’s probably a huge platform. I guess it’s what you make of it.
While you take us into the weeds with all the math in Ari’s goal setting (which is very entertaining, by the way), what I take away here is the absolute delight of this mom/son conversation about reading! Wow!!
And this past week, he started reading the PRESS START books (which Isabelle introduced him to). After reading one beside him, I suggested he read them on his own. And now he is. (I’m shocked!)
Ari is certainly ambitious. I hope he will be happy with his achievement, whatever it ends up being. I had not heard of Storygraph; I’m going to have to check it out. I have been keeping track of my reading this year since a friend posted how many books she read last year. No, I’m really not competitive. It intrigued me to track how many and what books I read. I also like to reread, though, and I’m not sure what to do with that.
I *think* there’s a reread feature on Storygraph.
Your use of dialogue is interesting and I found myself wondering about the ways that we as parents recall and document the conversations with our children. I’m sure that Ari will in the future will remember these fondly.
I may forget where I put my car keys, but I have a knack for remembering wording. (Plus, I write it down quickly afterwards!)
You go, Ari! Way to bring the math brain to reading! Love this!