As a mama and a librarian, this is one of my favorite times of year: the time for planning how I’m going to read in the coming year.  In the past I’ve done things like create a goal for how many books I want to read, I’ve participated in year-long activities like Book Riot’s Read Harder challenges, and I’ve winged it and barely read anything.  That first year with an infant was the first time in a while I didn’t meet my set reading goal.  With that in mind, here are some of the ways you can plan for bookish success as a family in 2017:

Set a goal with GoodReads.  I like to set it at something I’m positive I’ll reach so then I can spend the rest of the year watching just how much higher I can leap over that goalpost.

Plan to read works by marginalized voices.  Marginalization doesn’t just happen in adult publishing, it happens in the books published for children too.  Your goal can be as specific or broad as you want — it’s your reading goal!  If you want to read more works by women, or people with disabilities, or people of color, write that goal down and remind yourself of it when you’re at the library or bookstore.  For browsing, I enjoy using Smithsonian’s Book Dragon, as they’ve got books for all ages so you can plan that library hold haul accordingly, and it’s a lovely visual treat too.  As a bonus, when you read these books to your kids, it shows publishers there’s a market, and shows libraries that community members want those types of books in the library.

Work your way through a whole section of the library.  Whether it’s all the books in the dinosaur picture book shelf (yes my library has a specific dinosaur section, because we are awesome), or the whole juvenile nonfiction section on cooking, this type of goal is fun for the spatially motivated.

Adopt a family “author of the year.”  This works particularly well if you find an author whose works appeal to more than one age group. Examples include: Kate Beaton, B.J. Novak, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Lemony Snicket/Daniel Handler, and Jacqueline Woodson.  Spend time during the year working collectively through their repertoire.  Some authors will take longer than others!

Pick a place and focus on stories that feature it, or authors who hail from it.  It could be your city, your state, another country, or even another galaxy (well, it might be a little hard to find authors from another galaxy — though some are pretty out there).  Let books be your passports.

Of course, there are tons more ways you can enjoy reading with your kids (or by yourself — I don’t know about you, but I never truly relished the quiet time I had to read until after I had a baby and realized what a luxury it is).  But if you want to try and deliberately avoid reading Duck & Goose Find a Pumpkin 800 times in a row (not that I’m speaking from experience, ahem) these suggestions offer a ticket off that boat!