Welcome to the September check-in for the 2025 Motif Reading Challenge. We’re excited to host it again this year here at Chapter Adventure.
September Motif
“Birds, Bugs, & Botanicals”
Read a book with birds, bugs, or botanicals that are on the cover, in the title, or part of the story.
HOW IT WORKS:
:: Each month read one book that fits the motif (theme) for the month.
:: Follow @chapter_adventure on Instagram and Threads if you’re there. And/or join our Goodreads Challenge Group (Chapter Adventure Reading Challenges). The challenge is also available to track on Storygraph! Post about your read for that month on our monthly check-in post here or at any of the platforms previously mentioned with the hashtag #motifreadingchallenge.
:: Most importantly – Have Fun!
A FEW BOOK RECS
Challenge Completed: Birds, Bugs and Botanicals
Read a book with birds, bugs, or botanicals that are on the cover, in the title, or part of the story.
What A Bee Knows by Stephen Buchmann
Filled with insightful and intriguing information, the book is nevertheless easy to read. Chapters lead the reader from the bee’s short but remarkable life to its awareness, so different from ours.
I thought I knew something about bees, but it turned out that there was so much I didn’t know. I didn’t know that the majority of bees are solitary, ground nesters who do not live in hives. They are the rule, not the exception. I didn’t know that their color vision, being shifted to the ultra violet of the spectrum, bees don’t see reds. I didn’t know that bees (and flies,) easily avoid being swatted because motion doesn’t become motion for them until the rate of 200-250 frames per seconds. For humans it’s 20 fps, which is why motion pictures are run at 24 fps. I didn’t know that there are cuckoo bees that, just like the cuckoo bird, lays its eggs in another bee’s nest, where it will hatch first and cannibalize the host’s young.
I could go on, but best to allow interested readers to find out for themselves.
I read Murder Listens In by Elizabeth Daly for September–just got the review posted today: https://myreadersblock.blogspot.com/2025/10/murder-listens-in.html