Set 2025 Reading Goals with your Teens

In January each year, Goodreads prompts me to set a reading goal, and each year I set the goal of 52—one a week. If you friend me on Goodreads, you’ll see that I tallied 82 books in 2024, far surpassing my goal. I sat in a lot of doctors’ offices and hospital rooms this year with my mother and in-laws. Reading calms my soul and keeps me from harassing the nurses.

I encourage you to join Goodreads and participate in the 2025 Reading Challenge. Then take it one step further by encouraging your favorite teen to do the same. With Goodreads, you can:

• track what you’re reading and reviewing. This is especially helpful when you can’t remember whether you’ve already read a book,
• follow your favorite authors and get updates on when new books are released,
• friend your favorite readers to see what pages they’re turning and how they’re rating books,
• check out what the population worldwide is reading and reviewing,
• and help judge the year-end book awards. Fun!

By joining Goodreads and accepting a reading challenge with your teens, you’ll be able to see what they’re reading and encourage them to meet their goals. Reading is a great way to lower anxiety, as I discovered this year. Teens tend to walk around with backpacks of anxiety.

According to a post on Mental Health First Aid England, a 2018 study conducted by Dr. David Lewis, revealed that “reading as little as six minutes a day can reduce stress levels by 60% by reducing your heart rate, easing muscle tension and altering your state of mind.” That same study showed that “reading was better at reducing stress than music, drinking a cup of tea, going for a walk and playing video games.” That’s a sound endorsement for curling up in a comfy chair with a good book and a mug of hot chocolate.

A Canadian study of 12-15 year-olds, sponsored by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development as part of the Program for International Student Assessment, showed that by reading fiction “teens gain significant insights into mature relationships, personal values, cultural identity, physical safety and security, aesthetic preferences, and understanding of the physical world, all of which aid teen readers in the transition from childhood to adulthood.”

If you’re reading the books with your teens, you can answer questions they might pose. I still remember a long conversation I had with my mom after reading Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Talking about books is a great way to initiate a chat with your sometimes reclusive teens.

When my kids were teens, the Harry Potter series was popular, and we absolutely devoured the stories and movies together. If you’re looking for Christian-based middle-grade and young adult books, I suggest you check out anything by the following authors: Taylor Bennett, Gretchen Carlson, Julane Fisher, Laurie Germaine, Kristen Gwen, Victoria Kimble, Antony Barone Kolenc, Misha McCorkle, Sharon Rene, Tim Shoemaker, Candice Yamnitz, and me (wink).

Give it a try this year! And let me know how you fare. I’ll be praying for you.