The Magical Readathon is a Harry Potter themed readthon that takes place in two parts, just like Hogwarts students you’ll take OWLs and NEWTs relevant to your career ambition for when you leave school; OWLs run in April and NEWTs usually in August. I saw a lot of videos/posts about people taking part in this last year but was a a bit later finding out to take part so excited to be giving it a go now.
You can watch the intro video to the 2020 readathon here and access all the information via the website. What I have been completley blown away by is the amount of effort that has gone into the detail behind this, there’s a career guide which lists all of the subjects required for each career path and then a list of prompts for each subject.
OWLs are a bit simpler, there’s 12 subjects, each with their own prompt, OWLs run from 1st – 30th April and you can’t double up on prompts. I went through the career guide and I’m torn between Curse Breaker and Wandmaker so I’m probably overly optimistically aiming to complete all the OWLs I need to continue both of them and I’ll decide when I see the NEWT prompts.
Below are what I’m planning on reading for the eight subjects, I’ve focused on finding books for all the prompts out of ones I already own.
Ancient Runes ~ Heart on the cover or in the title
The Tell-Tale Heart ~ I thought this one would be easy but had to refer to the suggestions spreadsheet before I realised this was already on my shelves.
Arithmancy ~ Outside your favourite genre
Is Butter a Carb? ~ I’ve not read a nutrition book before so definitely not a favourite genre, still hoping I enjoy this one.
Care of Magical Creatures ~ Creature with a beak on the cover
Go Set a Watchman ~ I’ve been meaning to read this for ages, so a great excuse to get to it as there’s a bird on the cover.
Charms ~ White cover
Quiet ~ I’m not sure a cover can get more white than a white background with silver text.
Defence Against the Dark Arts ~ Book set at the sea/coast
This will depend a little bit on my library audiobook for The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy coming through at a good time. If it doesn’t then I’ll pick up The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock.
Herbology ~ Title starts with an ‘M’
Mrs Dalloway ~ This classic has been sat on my kindle for a while, so a perfect excuse to pick it up.
Potions ~ under 150 pages
I have a little collection of the £1 Penguin Modern Classics which I’m pretty sure are all under 150 pages so I’ll be picking one of those for this prompt nearer the time.
Transfiguration ~ Book that includes shapeshifting
Wolf by Wolf ~ the blurb for this mentions skinshifting which I’m guessing/hoping is the same thing as this has been on my kindle for years.
Are you taking part in the Magical Readathon this year? Have you picked a career? Do you have any alternative suggestions to any of these prompts?
