We made it through each day in December counting down to Christmas Eve with a Harry Potter Advent Calendar. To spice things up a bit this holiday season, we added an Advent BOOK calendar and loved opening up a book each day! We added 24 books in 24 days to our own library, and so happy that our local book store Madison Street Books helped picked and wrapped each one!
Presentation is key – and Madison Street Books knocked this part out of the park! Simply wrapped, brown paper with a bow and numbered with each day. This made our countdown simple and also provided a small bookmark for each of our books! Hope you read the why we even decided to do this – check out our last post here!
We did document each of the days on our Instagram so we could share each book each night! Was so impressed that I documented each night/first thing in the morning – until I realized I totally skipped day 5!
Here are a few of our daily post pics!
24 Books, 24 Days
Here are our books, in the order we unwrapped them!
- The Office Trivia Deck
- How to Fight – Thich Nhat Hanh
- The Chef – James Patterson
- A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
- This Book is Anti Racist – Tiffany Jewel
- A Study in Scarlet – Arthur Conan Doyle
- The Book Thief – Marcus Zusak
- The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
- City of Thieves – David Benioff
- Awesome Friendly Adventure – Jeff Kinney
- Dear Martin – Nic Stone
- The Truths We Hold – Kamala Harris
- WarCross – Marie Lu
- All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque
- Just Mercy – Bryan Stevenson
- Dogman: Grime and Punishment – Day Pilkey
- Pokemon Super Deluxe Essential Handbook
- Rad American History A – Z – Schatz & Stahl
- Humans of New York Stories – Brandon Stanton
- Ready Player Two – Ernest Cline
- Kids Book of the Elements – Theodore Gray
- The Book with No Pictures – B.J. Novak
- Marvel – First 80 Years – Titan
- She Persisted – Chelsea Clinton
Considering we had five people, ages 12 to 45, the kids all boys, and had to have a handful of genres to appeal to everyone and challenge everyone – I think we did pretty good! Some of these books I would never think of reading, and others I am really excited to have the boys read! All are willing to try reading each book, so hoping this is a successful reading adventure.
Happy to report that I have already knocked off five of the books. Now trying to decide which novel to start on first – Dear Martin, City of Thieves and A Study in Scarlet are all calling my name!
While it’s too late for 2020, tuck this idea in your back pocket next fall and do your own advent book calendar and help support local bookstores! Until then, achieve your monthly reading goals in and pick a few of these out to enjoy! Remember, most local bookstores are happy to ship direct to your home. Stay home, stay safe and curl up with a book (or two!)
Books on display, ready for reading in 2021! 
Some great books on this list! Can’t wait to get started!
This is a great idea! I will be doing this next year for my grandsons! I am going to start now so it wont cost so much at one time buying 48 books!
What a great idea! My grandson loves his books.
I miss reading books. There is just something amazing that you don’t get from reading online or audiobooks.
City of Thieves is great. You have a good list of books there, were have read many with our book club.
Great idea! My kids get books for Christmas from us every year! Tying it into an advent calendar would make it a little more fun! (My little guy had the Lego Harry Potter Advent calendar this year!).
We love those, too! We usually flip between the lego calendars each year!
Cool idea! That will keep you all busy for a while!
Fun approach to some great reading. Thanks for the challenge and the idea.
That’s so fun. And what a range of book genres. Such a great way to get the younger kids out of their comfort zones too with more advanced books.
Great fun! Cool ideas! I’m sure fun for the whole family!
I love book recommendations!
The gift of reading! Love this idea.
I love the idea of a book advent calendar. I am so doing this next year!
What a cool idea! I might see about doing one each month for the year 🙂
What a fun idea for encouraging reading during the holidays! I love how diverse the books are on this list!
What fun! I love reading…but often don’t have time unless I’m on vacation!
I keep trying to squeeze in 30m or so each day! And LOVE audiobooks (free with our local library) and help pass the time when working with my hands (crocheting, cooking, cleaning)
These are great! As a reading interventionist, it’s always cool to hear about the new books that kids might like.
Love this idea so much! And great list of books.