This evening I have reached another milestone in my Newbery Challenge.

In this clip from my tracking spreadsheet you can see that I have reached the 3/4 mark in the challenge. I have now read 300 of the 400 Newbery books, which also means that I have only 100 books left in the challenge.

I have also caught back up on having read all the Newbery Medal books. The books for 2015 were announced last week. See my post New Newbery Books.

Yesterday I picked up El Deafo by Cece Bell at the library. This wonderful graphic novel was a Newbery Honor selection this year. I really enjoyed reading this book and it was hard to put down once I picked it up.

The book has beautiful illustrations and they really help tell this story of Cece and her struggles with her hearing impairment. The book explores social dynamics and friendships and how they are affected by both big and small changes. The characters in the book are well developed and you can easily identify with them.

This is definitely a book that I would recommend, in fact I have recommended it to two different people today who are facing issues similar to those that are explored in this book.

Over the last week I have also been reading The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. I finished reading the book this evening to reach this milestone in the challenge.

This is another book that I really enjoyed. The book is set in an indistinct time and place that places it in the Fantasy genre, but it reads as Historical Fiction. Some out of sequence technology was a bit interesting, but really made you think about when different technology was available.

I also really enjoyed the descriptions of the setting and also the great character development.

This is also another case where I am adding more books to my to-read list. The book is the first of a trilogy and I want to know more of this story.

Now on toward the next milestone. I have another one that I should reach by the end of the month. This is the major milestone that I mentioned in Newbery Challenge Update III.

Steven