Wyrd & Wonder 2023 Is Here | Check Out My TBR

Finally I got a moment to chat about something I’ve been looking forward to as soon as the new year rolled around — Wyrd & Wonder.

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What is Wyrd & Wonder?

Wyrd & Wonder is a monthlong celebration of all things fantasy hosted by the W&W crew: Lisa at Dear Geek Place, Imyril at There’s Always Room for One More, Jorie at Jorie Loves a Story, Annemieke at A Dance With Books, and Ariana at the Book Nook.

This is a laidback event — participate however you like, whether that’s reading fantasy books and comics or watching fantasy shows, playing fantasy games, or just posting about fantasy-themed things on your blog or in your vlog or when chatting with friends. You decide how to participate.

This monthlong event takes place throughout May, so from May 1 – 31, but you can jump in (or jump out) whenever you like. Just look at me getting started late, although I’d started planning since last month! 😩

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Magical Readathon | 2022 — Orilium Autumn Equinox

Life is busy, so again I am late in starting a readathon. Actually, I was considering not doing it, or putting it off for later in the year, but I’ve been looking forward to this and am eager to get started. So despite being busy and behind in blogging, blog hopping, and reviewing, I’ll participate in the Magical Readathon. However, although the readathon is for a month, I’m considering extending it for myself since, due to my current schedule, I won’t be able to do much in a month (or maybe I’ll have to start next month… I don’t know).

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Quick Facts About the Readathon

The Magical Readathon is a two-part month-long readathon created and hosted by G, a booktuber. It was once based on the Harry Potter books, but G has redesigned it to be based on a world of her own imagining called Aeldia, where there’s a prestigious magic school called Orilium Academy.

Wyrd & Wonder 2022 Wrap Up

Wyrd & Wonder is all done and won’t be back until next year. But there are other events to possibly look forward to in the fall, like Spooktastic Reads and SciFiMonth. But in the meantime, here’s my wrap up.

Wyrd & Wonder is a monthlong celebration of all things fantasy where participants can participate in any way they like, whether reading books, watching shows, playing games, anything. Thanks to the hosts — Imyril, Lisa, Jorie, Ariana, and Annemieke — who kept us abreast of everyone’s posts, we had a fun, interactive event. Shout out them!

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Here are what my plans were and how I did.

Read ONLY fantasy books in May.

This was easy and is the only goal I managed to accomplish, but I only managed to complete one book and that’s Charmed Life, the first book in this anthology of Diana Wynne Jones’s Chrestomanci middle grade books. Other than that, I started many books and have a buddy-read on going.

Fantastic Top Five — Fav Fantasy Subgenre

Fantastic Top Fives is a meme for Wyrd & Wonder, a monthlong celebration in May of all things fantasy.

This week’s topic:

Top Five From a Favorite Fantasy Subgenre

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I’ve decided to focus on middle grade fantasy books for this week’s topic. I know middle grade is an age category and not a genre, but it certainly has its own flavor. These fantasy stories are often light, fun, fast-moving with loads of zany adventures, often with no parent or other responsible adult around. Kids often have to rely on their own abilities because adults are either evil, unaware, unavailable, or unreliable, and it’s up to the kids to save the day.

Other than the Harry Potter books, the Narnia series, whatever Rick Riordan writes, and the Tea Dragon books, here are a few others I enjoyed.

Fantastic Top Five — Single-Serve Fantasy Reads

Fantastic Top Fives is a meme for Wyrd & Wonder, a monthlong celebration in May of all things fantasy.

This week’s topic:

Top Five Single-Serve Fantasy Reads

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Now I know this calls for short works such as short stories and novellas, but I really want to talk about picture books because I love them and think more adults should give them a chance. Plus, they fit the category — being books you can read in a single sitting — and these will be great recommendations for your kids.

Fantastic Top Five — Forest Fantasy

Fantastic Top Fives is a meme for Wyrd & Wonder, a monthlong celebration in May of all things fantasy.

This week’s topic:

Top Five Forest Fantasy Recs

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Since wood is symbolic of fifth anniversaries, a theme for this year’s W&W is forest fantasy. For this topic, we can choose books that have “woodland settings, forest creatures, a particular focus on trees — or maybe even important wooden items and artifacts.” It’s totally up to you.

I’ve decided to focus on fantasy books that either have a forest setting or in which the forest has great significance. (Kinda went overboard and chose 7 🙃)

Magical Readathon | 2022 — Orilium Spring Equinox Wrap-Up

I completed the readathon! 😀 I’m so proud of myself — and my characters too — for surviving Orilium’s Spring Equinox semester. Confused about what I’m talking about? Well, the gist of it is —

This is part of the Magical Readathon hosted by booktuber, G, where we get to create characters, have them choose a calling (i.e., a career), and attend a magic university called Orilium Academy. For more details about the readathon, character creation, and all that, see my previous post.

We only needed to create one character for the readathon, but I created two because I got carried away. That means I had a lot to read. Luckily, I own a lot of unread comics and picture books and short stories, so they came in handy and I managed to complete the readathon in time.

We also had the option to take part in quests and guild wars. But I had too much going on, so I did neither. However, although we only had to read books for the required courses, I also took on some additional ones as electives my characters took because I obviously got too excited about all this. Well then, let’s see how my characters did.

Fantastic Top Five — Fantasies

Wyrd & Wonder has begun!! 😀 That means, no matter what, May will be a fantastic month.

If you want to know more about Wyrd & Wonder, the monthlong celebration of all things fantasy, see my previous post. But to get things started, I’ll do a Fantastic Top Fives post, which is a meme the Wyrd & Wonder crew created in honor of W&W’s fifth anniversary. There’s a different topic each week.

This week’s topic:

Top Five Fantasies Since Last Wyrd & Wonder

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To get my five below, I went back to books read since April last year. So here are the top fantasy/fantasy-related books I read since then.

Wyrd & Wonder 2022 Is Coming | Here’s My TBR

Wyrd & Wonder is almost here!!

Am I as prepared as I was hoping to be?

Nope.

But am I as excited as I was the year before?

I sure am!

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WHAT IS WYRD & WONDER?

It’s a laid-back monthlong celebration of all things fantasy. The event takes place during May (May 1-31), and you can participate in any way you like: whether that’s reading a bunch of fantasy books, playing a bunch of fantasy games, watching a bunch of fantasy movies, dressing up as a bunch of fantasy characters for every day in May, or whatever else you come up with. You decide how you’d like to display your love of fantasy.

This year’s celebration marks the fifth anniversary of W&W, so we have five hosts. In addition to the original Wyrd & Wonder crew — Imyril, Lisa, and Jorie — there’s also Ariana and Annemieke.

And, since a fifth anniversary is traditionally honored with a gift of wood, the theme of this year’s W&W is forest fantasy. You can stick to the theme if you like, but it’s not necessary.

Anyway, if you’d like to learn more about the event, see the links below.

Magical Readathon | 2022 — Orilium Spring Equinox

I’m a wee late with this, but it’s time to start my first semester at Orilium Academy!! 😀
If that sounds a bit odd, I mean that the Magical Readathon has officially started.

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Quickie About the Readathon

This is a month-long readathon created and hosted by G, a booktuber. For background and details about the readathon’s redesign, see my first post about the Novice Path. However, for details on this part of the readathon, see G’s video. The gist of it is:

• There are two semesters at Orilium Academy called equinoxes.
  • Spring equinox = month-long readathon in April
  • Autumn equinox = month-long readathon in August
• The readathon structure is similar to when the Magical Readathon was based on the Harry Potter world and we’d do OWLs and NEWTs, so:
  • Spring equinox — April — one prompt per course
  • Autumn equinox — August — three prompts per course; the number of prompts completed determines the grade you get for the subject
• The courses (prompts) you take are based on the Calling (career/vocation) you choose for your character. There are many Callings but four are exclusive to each guild:
  • Archmage — for House of the Arcane members
  • Master of Elements — for Order of the Crescent members
  • Godseer — for Archivist members
  • Dream Walker — for Mind Walker members
• Optional: Guild Tiers — a way to acquire social status within your guild via points your character can gain by completing semesters, mini readathons, and other tasks like random quests that’ll pop up on the adventure board (on Twitter, for now).
  • Each level on the tier comes with perks for the readathon.
  • Everyone starts at the lowest tier — Initiate.
  • Those who completed the Novice Path last year earned 50 points!
    • (Completing the Novice Path and character creation prompts and all that aren’t required, but you can do it if you want.)
  • Optional: Guild Wars — competition between the guilds