My Readathon TBR and Wizarding Career completely changed (shocking, I know), but I did complete NINE O.W.L.s last month, so I’m calling this year’s Readathon a success!
Even though my TBR was literally one book long, I uh… didn’t read it. But that’s not to say that I didn’t read anything! I actually read eleven books last month, and nine of them fit O.W.L.s prompts, so I did pretty well!
I’m going to list all the prompts (even the ones I didn’t complete) and the books I read to fill them, then I’ll tell you what I decided to do for my Wizarding Career this year and what I need to complete N.E.W.T.s in in August!
Ancient Runes
Read something with a heart on the cover or in the title
Book Read: Did Not Sit This Exam
Arithmancy
Read something outside your favorite genre
Book Read: The Shadow Cipher (a middle grade mystery)
The Shadow Cipher by Laura Ruby
Series: York #1
Published on May 16, 2017 by Walden Pond Press
Genres: Middle Grade, Mystery, Alternate History
Pages: 476
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It was 1798 when the Morningstarr twins arrived in New York with a vision for a magnificent city: towering skyscrapers, dazzling machines, and winding train lines, all running on technology no one had ever seen before. Fifty-seven years later, the enigmatic architects disappeared, leaving behind for the people of New York the Old York Cipher—a puzzle laid into the shining city they constructed, at the end of which was promised a treasure beyond all imagining. By the present day, however, the puzzle has never been solved, and the greatest mystery of the modern world is little more than a tourist attraction.
Tess and Theo Biedermann and their friend Jaime Cruz live in a Morningstarr apartment house—until a real estate developer announces that the city has agreed to sell him the five remaining Morningstarr buildings. Their likely destruction means the end of a dream long-held by the people of New York. And if Tess, Theo and Jaime want to save their home, they have to prove that the Old York Cipher is real. Which means they have to solve it.
From National Book Award Finalist Laura Ruby comes a visionary epic set in a New York City at once familiar and wholly unexpected.
Astronomy
Read something mostly at night
Book Read: The Hidden Oracle
The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan
Series: The Trials of Apollo #1
Published on May 3, 2016 by Disney-Hyperion
Genres: Middle Grade, Fantasy, Retellings, Mythology
Pages: 375
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Author Links: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Amazon, Instagram
How do you punish an immortal?
By making him human.
After angering his father Zeus, the god Apollo is cast down from Olympus. Weak and disorientated, he lands in New York City as a regular teenage boy. Now, without his godly powers, the four-thousand-year-old deity must learn to survive in the modern world until he can somehow find a way to regain Zeus's favour.
But Apollo has many enemies—gods, monsters and mortals who would love to see the former Olympian permanently destroyed. Apollo needs help, and he can think of only one place to go... an enclave of modern demigods known as Camp Half-Blood.
Care of Magical Creatures
Read something with a creature with a beak on the cover
Book Read: Did Not Sit This Exam
Charms
Read something with a white cover
Book Read: The Lost Kingdom of Bamarre
The Lost Kingdom of Bamarre by Gail Carson Levine
Series: The Two Princesses of Bamarre #0.5
Published on May 2, 2017 by HarperCollins
Genres: Middle Grade, Fantasy
Pages: 416
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Peregrine strives to be the Latki ideal—and to impress her parents: affectionate Lord Tove, who despises only the Bamarre, and stern Lady Klausine. Perry runs the fastest, speaks her mind, and doesn’t give much thought to the castle’s Bamarre servants, who she knows to be weak and cowardly. The Lakti always wage war, and the battlefield will give her the chance to show her valor.
But just as she’s about to join her father on the front lines, she is visited by the fairy Halina, who reveals that Perry isn’t Latki-born. She is a Bamarre. The fairy issues a daunting challenge: against the Lakti might, free her people from tyranny.
Defense Against the Dark Arts
Read something set at the sea or on the coast
Book Read: Show Me a Sign
Mary Lambert has always felt safe and protected on her beloved island of Martha's Vineyard. Her great-grandfather was an early English settler and the first deaf islander. Now, over a hundred years later, many people there - including Mary - are deaf, and nearly everyone can communicate in sign language. Mary has never felt isolated. She is proud of her lineage.
Show Me a Sign by Ann Clare LeZotte
Published on March 3, 2020 by Scholastic Press
Genres: Middle Grade, Historical Fiction
Pages: 288
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But recent events have delivered winds of change. Mary's brother died, leaving her family shattered. Tensions over land disputes are mounting between English settlers and the Wampanoag people. And a cunning young scientist has arrived, hoping to discover the origin of the island's prevalent deafness. His maniacal drive to find answers soon renders Mary a "live specimen" in a cruel experiment. Her struggle to save herself is at the core of this novel.
Divination
Use a Random Number Generator to Pick Your Book
Book Read: Now, Then and Everywhen
Now, Then, and Everywhen by Rysa Walker
Series: CHRONOS Origins #1
Also in this series: Now, Then, and Everywhen
Published on April 1, 2020 by 47North
Genres: Adult, Science Fiction, Time Travel
Pages: 503
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Author Links: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube
When two time-traveling historians cross paths during one of the most tumultuous decades of the twentieth century, history goes helter-skelter. But which one broke the timeline?
In 2136 Madison Grace uncovers a key to the origins of CHRONOS, a time-travel agency with ties to her family’s mysterious past. Just as she is starting to jump through history, she returns to her timeline to find millions of lives erased—and only the people inside her house realize anything has changed.
In 2304 CHRONOS historian Tyson Reyes is assigned to observe the crucial events that played out in America’s civil rights movement. But a massive time shift occurs while he’s in 1965, and suddenly the history he sees isn’t the history he knows.
As Madi’s and Tyson’s journeys collide, they must prevent the past from being erased forever. But strange forces are at work. Are Madi and Tyson in control or merely pawns in someone else’s game?
Herbology
Read something that starts with ‘I’
Book Read: Did Not Sit This Exam
History of Magic
Read something with witches or wizards
Book Read: The Guinevere Deception
There is nothing in the world as magical and terrifying as a girl.
The Guinevere Deception by Kiersten White
Series: Camelot Rising #1
Also in this series: The Guinevere Deception, The Camelot Betrayal
Published on November 5, 2019 by Delacorte Press
Genres: YA, Fantasy, Retellings
Pages: 342
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Author Links: Website, Twitter, Goodreads, Instagram
Princess Guinevere has come to Camelot to wed a stranger: the charismatic King Arthur. With magic clawing at the kingdom's borders, the great wizard Merlin conjured a solution -- send in Guinevere to be Arthur's wife... and his protector from those who want to see the young king's idyllic city fail. The catch? Guinevere's real name -- and her true identity -- is a secret. She is a changeling, a girl who has given up everything to protect Camelot.
To keep Arthur safe, Guinevere must navigate a court in which the old -- including Arthur's own family -- demand things continue as they have been, and the new -- those drawn by the dream of Camelot -- fight for a better way to live. And always, in the green hearts of forests and the black depths of lakes, magic lies in wait to reclaim the land. Arthur's knights believe they are strong enough to face any threat, but Guinevere knows it will take more than swords to keep Camelot free.
Deadly jousts, duplicitous knights, and forbidden romances are nothing compared to the greatest threat of all: the girl with the long black hair, riding on horseback through the dark woods toward Arthur. Because when your whole existence is a lie, how can you trust even yourself?
Muggle Studies
Read a contemporary
Book Read: The Mall
The year is 1991. Scrunchies, mixtapes and 90210 are, like, totally fresh. Cassie Worthy is psyched to spend the summer after graduation working at the Parkway Center Mall. In six weeks, she and her boyfriend head off to college in NYC to fulfill The Plan: higher education and happily ever after.
The Mall by Megan McCafferty
Published on July 28, 2020 by Wednesday Books
Genres: YA, Contemporary
Pages: 320
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But you know what they say about the best laid plans...
Set entirely in a classic “monument to consumerism,” the novel follows Cassie as she finds friendship, love, and ultimately herself, in the most unexpected of places.
Potions
Read something under 150 pages
Book Read: The Circle That Whines
Coping with multiple timelines and double memories is a challenge, even for seasoned CHRONOS historians. For the one canine who lives inside a CHRONOS field, they’re a major headache. Can Daphne find a way to save her pack from the Circles-That-Whine?
The Circle That Whines by Rysa Walker
Series: CHRONOS Origins #0.5
Also in this series: Now, Then, and Everywhen
Published on February 4, 2020 by Starry Night Books
Genres: Adult, Science Fiction, Time Travel
Pages: 34
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Author Links: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube
Transfiguration
Read something that includes shapeshifting
Book Read: The Clockwork Ghost
It was only a few weeks ago that the Biedermann twins, Tess and Theo, along with their friend Jaime Cruz, followed the secrets of the Morningstarrs’ cipher further anyone had in its century-and-a-half history—and destroyed their beloved home in the process. But the Old York Cipher still isn’t solved. The demolition of 354 W. 73rd Street only revealed the next clue in the greatest mystery of the modern world, and if Tess, Theo, and Jaime want to discover what lies at the end of the puzzle laid into the buildings of New York by its brilliant, enigmatic architects, they will need to press on.
The Clockwork Ghost by Laura Ruby
Series: York #2
Published on May 14, 2019 by Walden Pond Press
Genres: Middle Grade, Mystery, Alternate History
Pages: 480
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But doing so could prove even more dangerous than they know. It is clear that the Morningstarr twins marshaled all the strange technology they had spent their lives creating in the construction of the Cipher, and that technology has its own plans for those who pursue it. It is also clear that Tess, Theo, and Jaime are not the only ones on the trail of the treasure. As enemies both known and unknown close in on them from all sides and the very foundations of the city seem to crumble around them, they will have to ask themselves how far they will go to change the unchangeable—and whether the price of knowing the secrets of the Morningstarrs is one they are willing to pay.
So based on the O.W.L.s I did (and did not) complete, I created a list of possible Wizarding Careers. I was thisclose to choosing to be a Ministry Worker in the Muggle Liaison Office, and then (literally as I was typing this) I changed my mind and decided to be a Hogwarts Professor instead! I’m going to teach Muggle Studies, which means that I need the following N.E.W.T.s in August:
- O in Muggle Studies (My Subject!)
- E in Defense Against the Dark Arts
- A’s in at least 2 other subjects
So that’s a wrap! Did you participate in the Magical Readathon? Let me know what you read (and what your Wizarding Career will be!) in the comments and have a splendiferous day!
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