It’s partly because of the beautiful image, that I first saw posted here, and partly because I so recently enjoyed re-reading some childhood fantasy favourites, and partly because I’ve recently finished two other reading challenges for the year (Canada Reads and Canada Reads Independently), and partly because in taking a closer look I am impressed by how many people have so many nice things to say about the host, that I find it completely and entirely impossible to resist joining The Once Upon a Time Challenge.

What, however, is equally impossible is trying to work in as many relevant reads as I’d like to, so I am committing to The Journey, but will hope to read a few of the most tempting qualifying reads. Now that I know about this challenge, I’ll be sure to leave more reading room for it next year. It’s gotten so that I book reading like some other people book vacations.

Nonetheless, I’m eyeing two fairly recent books (Hiromi Goto’s Half World and Alison Goodman’s Eon: Dragoneye Reborn), two not-so-recent-books-that-still-feel-recent-to-me (Nalo Hopkinson’s The New Moon’s Arms and Catherynne M. Valente’s In the Night Garden) and two that I’ve been meaning to take time for, well, for an embarrassingly long time (Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin and Walter Wangerin Jr’s The Book of the Dun Cow). There are others, but these are the most tempting for me just now.

Based on last year’s reading I would have chosen Quest the First, including some fairy tale options (like Linda Medley’s Castle Waiting series, part of the Fables series, and a novel which I discovered just as the year turned, Sonya Hartnett’s The Ghost’s Child, which I thought absolutely beautiful and haunting). And for folk lore, I especially enjoyed Lauren Groff’s The Monsters of Templeton, and I had tremendous fun with Kelley Armstrong’s “Women of the Otherworld” series (if werewolves and such are part of the folklore category).

But I really like the idea of Quest the Second, so I’ll be keeping an eye out for suitable candidates in the months ahead and will likely have a much larger pool to pick from next year. I’d also love an excuse to read some of the anthologies that would fit the short story and non-fiction quests too: such fun! I’m so looking forward to it.