Najla Al Owais and Myra Garces-Bacsal here.

The College of Education at UAEU held a university-wide reading challenge as part of the month-long reading festival held in March of last year – 2023  (see here for our #UAEReads post on this). We also thought that it would be good to open the challenge to participants of all ages outside of the university, which made the entire reading experience throughout this month even more diverse and exciting.

Around 60 people signed up and registered to join – with participants coming from Colleges of Medicine and Health Sciences, Information and Technology, Engineering, Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, College of Science – in addition to Humanities and Social Sciences and the College of Education.

The first ones who signed up automatically became a part of the Mystery Book Giveaway during the launch of the festival on March 01 (see photos of the book giveaways – can you guess what the books are?):

Participants were encouraged to read books written in their preferred languages based on the categories listed above. There were weekly email check-ins (and mini-challenges) whereby participants were asked to take photos of their books (or with their books) with a short caption of their thoughts / reflections about the book on the padlet. Here is just a sample of the vibrant, multi-lingual feel of this reading community:

We then shared these padlet entries through an Instagram account (handle: @cedureadingchallenge) created for the challenge.

To give you a teaser, we have put together a snapshot of some of the entries in the category: A Book Set In The UAE.

1. Folktales from Dibba by Khalid Sulaiman Al Hindasy
2. Daughter of Rain by Mariam Al Ghefli
3. Suitors for Sheikha by Nauf Alwan (see here for our #UAEReads post on this book)
4. Two Great Leaders by Sheikh Mohamed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (see the #UAEReads #WorldKidLit review of kid reviewer Abdulla Al Owais here)
5. Aisha’s Pearl by Julia Johnson and illustrated by Maitha Al Khayat

Participants also shared poems or collections of poems that they read during the challenge, including the following:

1. You’re Not A Girl In A Movie by Hala Alyan
2. Black Book of Poems by Vincent Hunanyan
3. Because I Love You by Farouq Juweida
4. The Damascene Poem by Nizar Qabbani

Participants also shared the following on the padlet: their TBR list, pictures of their reading journals, a roundup post of books they read – among others.

What was interesting is that the challenge included university professors, college students, as well as young children aged 7 and 8 years old – which contributed even more to this sense of community. The reading challenge participants had the opportunity to connect with each other either on the padlet through comments on each other’s posts or on the dedicated Instagram account. During the reading festival’s closing ceremony, the winners were awarded with mystery books and certificates. Unfortunately, we were not able to secure any kind of sponsorship from any of the leading bookstores in the country for the reading challenge, hence, we all contributed and our college has likewise provided support to make this happen.

Here are some of our book giveaways during the closing of the festival.

Earlier this morning, one of our Guest Contributors, Fajer M. Bin Rashed, wrote how “reading for pleasure is commonly perceived as an individual act” and proceeded to share about the book club scene here in the Emirates. Evidently, there are multiple reading communities one can be a part of here in the UAE – if you are looking hard enough and know to look at the right places. We have always been of the firm belief that if you give a shout-out or a call to readers, they will come. And we are ever so grateful that they came in droves for this reading challenge that has nourished our souls considerably.

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About the Guest Contributor for #UAEReads:

Najla Al Owais is a PhD candidate studying Math Education at UAEU. She has previously worked as a middle school mathematics teacher, and a freelance translator and interpreter. She is passionate about teaching mathematics, and is an avid reader, and loves finding the intersection between both mathematics and reading. She has a Bachelor’s of Science from Zayed University in Math Education and Masters of Arts from the American University of Sharjah in English-Arabic-English Translating and Interpreting. Wherever she goes, books find her. She hopes to one day publish her own book.

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About the Guest Editor/Curator for March 2024 [#UAEReads]:

Myra Garces-Bacsal has served as a teacher educator for 15 years and has led several research projects on reading and social emotional learning, diverse picturebooks and teacher practices, psychology of high creatives and exceptional people, culturally responsive and inclusive education. She is a quintessential lover and creator of booklists (see her Social and Emotional Learning bookshelf here and other publications below). Myra serves as the Assistant Dean for Research and Graduate Studies with the College of Education, UAE University. She is a self-proclaimed nerd who lives and breathes books and enjoys organizing events and festivals where fellow nerds converge and attempt to joyfully change the world.

Publications on booklists:

Garces-Bacsal, R. M., Alhosani, N. M., Elhoweris, H., Tupas, R. (2023). A diverse social and emotional learning booklist for gifted learners and advanced readers. Roeper Review, 45(1), 25-36. https://doi.org/10.1080/02783193.2022.2145397

Garces-Bacsal, R. M., Alhosani, N. M., Elhoweris, H., Al Ghufli, H. T., AlOwais, N. M., Baja, E. S., & Tupas, R. (2022). Using diverse picturebooks for inclusive practices and transformative pedagogies. In M. Efstratopoulou (Ed.), Rethinking Inclusion and Transformation in Special Education (pp. 72-92). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-4680-5.ch005

Garces-Bacsal, R. M. (2021). Of grit and gumption, sass and verve: What gifted students can learn from multicultural picture book biographies. In S. R. Smith’s Handbook of giftedness and talent development in Australasian Pacific (pp. 431-453). Singapore: Springer International Handbooks of Education. https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-981-13-3041-4_18

Garces-Bacsal, R. M. (2020). Diverse books for diverse children: Building an early childhood diverse booklist for social and emotional learning. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 22(1), 66-95. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468798420901856