New Summer Reading Challenge!
A New Quest for Middle Grade Readers
Welcome, Adventurers!
Summer is fast approaching, and if you’ve been with me from the beginning, you know I can’t resist a summer reading challenge! Or any reading challenge really…
This year, I wanted to do something a little different. Combining two of my favorite things—choose-your-own-adventures and magic schools—I came up with The Sunhollow Academy Summer Reading Challenge.
Let’s explore!
Welcome to Sunhollow Academy
Sunhollow Academy is a summer reading challenge for tweens and young teens, built around a simple premise: every great reader has a discipline. A way of seeing. A kind of story that calls to them more than any other.
Note: though the Academy was created with middle grade readers in mind, the prompts are broad enough to encompass all ages—picture books to adult! A challenge for the entire family, if you want!
About the Challenge
At Sunhollow, there are five schools of study. Readers choose the one that fits them — or try all five. Each school has seven reading prompts. Complete any five of seven and you earn that school’s badge. Earn all five badges and you graduate as a Sunhollow Scholar.
The full challenge runs June 1 through August 31, which gives even the most leisurely reader enough time to work through multiple disciplines without it feeling rushed. There’s no minimum pace and no weekly check-ins. Just the prompts, the books, and a printable tracker where kids write down every title they find along the way.
So get ready and step into Sunhollow Academy…
The Five Schools
School of Elemental Magic
Badge: Elemancer
If you have ever watched a thunderstorm from a window and felt, just for a moment, like it was watching you back — Sunhollow has been expecting you.
The School of Elemental Magic studies the forces that shape the world. Fire that transforms. Water that remembers. Earth that holds its breath. Wind that carries things away and never quite brings them back. Here, the elements are not scenery. They are alive. And some of them are listening.
If you feel the pull of something ancient and electric, the School of Elemental Magic is waiting.
School of Creature Studies
Badge: Beastkeeper
If you have ever made eye contact with an animal and wondered what it was thinking — the School of Creature Studies has already made note of your name.
This school studies all of it. The real and the mythical. The beloved and the feared. The creature that speaks in a story and the creature that doesn’t need to. Apprentices of the School of Creature Studies know that animals have interior lives, that the bond between a human and an animal is one of the oldest stories there is, and that some of the best books ever written are told from a point of view with four legs.
The creatures have been waiting for someone to pay attention. That someone might be you.
School of Magical Cartography
Badge: Pathfinder
If you have ever read the map at the front of a book before reading anything else — the School of Magical Cartography has had your name on file for some time.
This school studies maps and their many destinations. Stories set in countries that exist and countries that don’t. Quests, voyages, wanderings, and the particular kind of reader who is always slightly disappointed when a book ends because it means leaving somewhere they wanted to stay.
If you have ever closed a book and grieved the place more than the plot — the School of Magical Cartography is ready to send you somewhere new.
School of Arcane Knowledge
Badge: Keeper of Secrets
If you have ever gone looking for answers in the past, the School of Arcane Knowledge has been watching your progress with great interest.
This school thrives on the combination of history, myth, and magic, and the endless pursuit of knowledge. If you’re the type of reader who can’t wait to step through a portal, you’ll find yourself right at home.
The secrets are already waiting. You just have to go looking.
School of Shadow Arts
Badge: Shadowcaster
If you have ever figured out the ending before the main character did — the School of Shadow Arts has been expecting you. It is not surprised.
Apprentices of the School of Shadow Arts go looking for what’s underneath — the unreliable narrator, the secret at the center, the twist that reorders everything that came before it. They read the same sentence twice when something doesn’t add up. They notice what the story isn’t saying. And when they read a mystery, they try to solve it before the detective does.
The door is already open. It was open before you arrived.
How to Complete the Challenge
Print the whole set. Choose your discipline.
Work on multiple disciplines at once — a book can only count toward one discipline, but there’s no rule against having three trackers going simultaneously. Ambitious readers who want to earn the Scholar credential will need to read broadly, which is the point.
Use the bonus challenges when you get stuck or finish early. These are optional prompts that don’t count toward any badge — things like reading outside, drawing a map of a fictional place, or asking an older family member what their favorite childhood book was. They’re designed to extend the experience without adding pressure.
Print the certificates as you earn badges. Sign them. Date them. Celebrate the moment!
Get the Printables
The full Sunhollow Academy printable set — cover page, all five discipline trackers, and all six badge certificates — is available below. Everything is US Letter size, designed to print cleanly in both color and black and white.
And a little bonus: discipline bookmarks so you can take your prompts on the go! All you have to do is cut them out, and you’re ready!
If you complete a discipline this summer, I’d love to hear about it — what books you found, which badge you earned first, what bonus challenges you did. Comment below or tag me on social media!
Happy reading!