Long Trail School

Dorset, Vermont

1,000 Page Challenge

COLIN'S 1,000 PAGE CHALLENGE

This summer, you are enthusiastically invited to participate in Colin’s 1,000 Page Challenge.  The heart of the challenge is very simple: read.  Colin challenges all LTS community members to read 1,000 pages this summer.  For all those who accomplish this goal, there will be a special event at the start of next school year.  Read novels, non-fiction, dramas, graphic novels, memoirs, biographies, whatever your heart desires.  Simply read.

1,000 Page Challenge Reading Log Form
Summer Learning

What is this?
A challenge to all members of the Long Trail community to read 1,000 pages (or more!) this summer.

When does it happen?
All summer!  The challenge begins now and continues until the first day of the 2024-25 school year.

What can I read?
ANYTHING you have not previously read.  Fiction, non-fiction, memoir, poetry, essays, dramas, graphic novels, etc. are all great. Read whatever interests you…just read!

Do my summer reading assignments count toward the 1,000 pages?
Yes!

How do I keep track of what I read?

  • After each book you read, complete the Reading Log Form. Complete a form each time you finish a book.
  • The form asks for the book title, author, and number of pages.  For fun, we also ask you to rate the book on a scale of 1-5 (so we might recommend it to others).
  • LTS keeps track of how many pages you have read.

What if I don’t know what to read?
We are fortunate to have incredible local libraries.  Stop by your local library or the Northshire Bookstore (owned by LTS alums!) and ask for a recommendation.

Still not sure what to read? Here is what Colin is planning to read this summer to complete the 1,000 page challenge (as well as some of his favorites):

  • The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt (non-fiction)
  • Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (fiction)
  • In My Time of Dying by Sebastian Junger (non-fiction)
  • The Hunter by Tana French (fiction)
  • James by Percival Everett (fiction)

Some of Colin’s favorites:

  • A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (fiction)
  • Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard (non-fiction)
  • Salvage The Bones by Jesmyn Ward (fiction)
  • Wooden on Leadership by John Wooden (memoir)
  • The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz (non-fiction)
  • 1776 by David McCullough (non-fiction)
  • The Road by Cormac McCarthy (fiction)
  • Why I Wake Early by Mary Oliver (poetry)
  • The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
  • Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin (essays)
  • A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (fiction)
  • Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer (non-fiction)

We hope you accept the 1,000 page challenge. Enjoy your reading this summer!

“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”

– Carl Sagan

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