Soothing, Gentle Challenges

It looks like 2014 will be the year I join a million challenges! I like the kindly, Canadian feel of Riedel's Gentle Spectrums challenges, which seem to fit into my philosophy of mostly reading whatever I want and hoping that my choices are broad enough to fill up all the slots. Of course, if my reading early in the year isn't broad enough, then I have to run around like a chicken at the end to fill out all my lists. Once again Riedel supports this -- her challenges run February - February, so I don't have to disappear during Christmas and family vacations to make my goals.

I'm going to try to do both her A and B challenges, although maybe some of my books will fit in both! I should probably check on the legality of that, though. One spectrum is ten books of color, and one is ten books whose titles reflect 10 themes.

Limitless Pallet: 10/10

Any book with a color in its title. Repeats are fine as long as titles are different.

1. Blood Oranges, Kathleen Tierney 2/12/14
2. Black Duck, Janet Taylor Lisle 2/21/14
3. Love, Ruby Lavender, Deborah Wiles 2/25/14
4. Who Stole Grandma's Million-Dollar Pumpkin Pie? Martha Freeman 2/28/14
5. Thousand Pieces of Gold, Ruthanne Lum McCunn 3/7/14
6. Rose, Holly Webb, 4/17/14
7. True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp, Kathi Appelt 6/17/14
8. Mrs Pollifax and the Golden Triangle, Dorothy Gilman
9. Black Butler 1, Yana Toboso 7/10/14
10. Blue Remembered Hills, Rosemary Sutcliff 7/6/14
11. Indigo Springs, A.M. Dellamonica 8/18/14
12. The Golden Leopard, Lynn Kerstan 9/27/14

Gentle Subjects: 10/10

(1)  PLANTS: Trees, flowers, grass, gardening & crop-sowing references.

1. War For the Oaks, Emma Bull, 4/1/14
2. Rose, Holly Webb 4/17/14
3. Wood Sprites, Wen Spencer

(2) STRUCTURES:  A building, rooms, a room or building’s parts.

1. Welcome To the Ark, Stephanie S. Tolan 3/6/14
2. The Water Castle, Megan Frazer Blackmore, 4/12/14
3. Lockwood & Co: The Screaming Staircase, Jonathan Stroud 6/14/14
4. Escape From Mr Lemoncello's Library, Chris Grabenstein 7/27/14

(3)  NATIONS: Culture names, locations ~ lakes, towns, famous spots.

1. Hawkes Harbor, S.E. Hinton. 3/25/14
2. Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha, Dorothy Gilman 5/12/14
3. The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp, Kathi Appelt 6/29/14

(4)  STONES:  Synonyms, gems, ruins, geological formations.

1. Lord of Mountains, S.M. Stirling 2/26/14
2. Heart of Steel, Meljean Brooks 6/8/14
3. The Fault In Our Stars, John Green 9/20/14

(5)  FAMILIES: Types of relatives, last names, full names.

1. The War With Grandpa, Robert Kemmel Smith 3/16/14
2. Joey Pigza Loses Control, Jack Gantos 4/22/14
3. Child of a Hidden Sea, A.M. Dellamonica
4. Marriage Bureau for Rich People, Farahad Zama

(6)  QUINTUPLED: A title of 5+ words (articles are fine).

1. Who Stole Grandma's Million-Dollar Pumpkin Pie? Martha Freeman 2/28/14
2. When Molly Was a Harvey Girl, Frances Wood, 4/17/14
3. Mistress of the Art of Death, Ariana Franklin 6/15/14
4. The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction, Justine Larbalestier 6/28/14
5. Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang

(7)  CHEESY:  Lame puns or quotations, outrageous, silly;  actual cheeses!
Other Goose: J.Otto Seibold
Bad Machinery: The Case of the Team Spirit
There Is No Dog, Meg Rosoff 9/27/14

(8)  ENCHANTING: Mystical, eerie (enchanting content fulfills title;  no debunked ending).

1. The Ghost's Secret, Peg Kehret. 2/10/14
2. Phantom Eyes, Scott Tracey 6/8/14
3. Mistress of the Art of Death, Ariana Franklin 6/29/14

(9)  WEATHER: Any words approximating weather or seasons.

1. The Goddess of Spring, P.C. Cast 3/20/14
2. Bluffton: My Summers with Buster Keaton, Matt Phelan 3/24/14
3. The Summer of May, Cecelia Galante 6/7/14
4. Archangel's Storm, Nalini Singh 8/3/14

(10)  CHEERFUL:  Positive messages, conveys pleasant images!

1. A Kiss at Midnight, Eloise James 4/14/14
2. Beautiful Unique Sparkleponies, Chris Kluwe 4/21/14
3. The Heart of a Woman, Maya Angelou 6/8/14