Miss Summer Reading Challenges? Join One for Adults!

Published: June 13, 2025

Remember the joy of summer reading challenges? Whether hosted by schools, libraries, or Pizza Hut, we can recall the thrill of logging a new title and, if we're really lucky, getting a fun prize in return.

If you've missed that rush, you're in luck! A reading challenge created for adults is keeping the TBR momentum alive.

The National Book Foundation's Summer Reading Adventure

The National Book Foundation's Summer Reading Adventure, created in partnership with the New York Public Library, is a reading initiative aimed to get adults to pick up a book this summer.

So how does it work? Readers located in any U.S. state are encouraged to complete a series of activities from a list provided by the Foundation. Many are reading-based, like listening to an audiobook, re-reading a favorite book from childhood or borrowing a book from a friend or Little Free Library. There are also bookish challenges to complete, like watching a book-to-screen adaptation, listening to a literary podcast, or finding a National Book Award honoree in a display at a bookstore.

Participants can complete as many challenges as they like throughout the summer. To log their progress, readers must submit the amount of activities they've finished through the summer challenge's website by August 29.

Readers who complete any number of activities from the list will receive a discount code to buy a book from Bookshop.org, as well as a free audiobook from Libro.fm. They will also be entered to win additional prizes, like books, thermoses, e-readers, and more.

Readers who complete every activity on the list will be entered to win a trip to New York City, to attend the 76th National Book Awards Ceremony in November.

The Summer Reading Adventure is just one of the many bookish challenges underway this summer. Retail giants like Barnes & Noble, and publishers like Scholastic alike host summer reading programs for kids, while many libraries and bookstores across the country continue to spearhead their own.

Though full of fun, these programs also offer an avenue for readers to connect with one another. "They take something that is inherently a private act — that we each sit down with a book and read — and make it a communal activity that we're engaging in together and sharing and comparing and inspiring one another," Ruth Dickey, executive director of the National Book Foundation, told The New York Times.

For more information on the challenge, visit the National Book Awards' website.