She always had more of that self-tanner look to me.

Me too! We had a rewards thing where you got a pizza hut voucher or something for every ten books you read. My teacher basically accused me of lying because I was claiming so many vouchers... so my awesome mother came in and told her that all I did all day at home was read, she'd personally seen me reading all the…

We had the same thing. Not only did it allow me to be inappropriately competitive using my best skill, it also had the worst (best for children) prize of all time - Pizza Hut coupons. Actually a similar program from my younger years in school called Book It offered the same thing.

That lion's mane is fabulous!

I was home schooled, but my library had a reading contest for the summer when I was seven or so. SO MANY food prizes from Mcdonalds, some crappy pizza place, ice cream shops, Burger King... my twin passions for reading and food were well sated that year.

If one HAS to be famous (ha), I've decided it would be best to be undercover famous. Like, a ridiculously successful author who very few people recognize, until you need something just out of reach, when you can name drop yourself. "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm going to need you to get me that dinner reservation at (insert…

If Gawker can raise $200,000 to watch a politician smoke crack, surely this is feasible?

Ditto. I had the most points in the school almost every year, starting in the 3rd grade. I just loved to read, and I read any book I could get my hands on. I read a lot of children's classics then, like Heidi and The Secret Garden. It's a shame that long books (aside from Harry Potter) aren't really marketed to kids…

Me too. Our school had a fundraiser, a book readathon. People agreed to donate a certain amount for every book read. Well, at the time I was tearing through the Three Investigators series, Roald Dahl, Choose Your Own Adventures...I'd read over a hundred books, and some people had pledged a dollar a book. I didn't…

Yep, we had that too. I remember reading Anna Karenina in 5th grade because it was worth a whopping 169 points! Needless to say, that year I won the reading prize.

We had a program to encourage reading over the summer. You didn't really get prizes or anything interesting. I think there was a certificate?

I would've killed for something like that!

I don't wanna be famous but Shoot....I wouldn't mind being rich.

Couldn't agree more! But I would like to be rich. Unknown and stinking (all right perhaps just a bit malodorous) rich! :)

I remember my second grade teacher did a program where we could get a variety of prizes for reading a certain number of books in a month. I struggled to get to the first tier, never getting the bookmark with the strawberry-scented sticker. Eventually, a classmate pointed out that everyone else was filling up their…

Yes, this was me too ... except before computers. I always read whatever they sent me home with in an evening. I fondly remember reading books as I ate the Ellio's pizza my my would make me for dinner before one of my various practices - and then reading in the car. I'd often make her sit with me in the parking lot…

probably the proudest moment of my pre-teen life was knocking out 130 points in one quarter and my teacher allowing me to gloat over the intercom to the class we were competing with.

My school had something similar. One time, after being exasperated at having to give me ANOTHER sticker/prize/whatever, my teacher said "There's no way you can read that fast, you must be skimming, I don't award stickers for skimming." And I was really offended because NO, I just loved to read that much and spent all…

We did this at my elementary school, too! I always got a sick, dorky pleasure in kicking everybody's asses. Even kicks several grades above me. I WAS QUEEN OF THE BOOKS!

One of my cats is obsessed with plastic shopping bags. We have to get rid of them because she will not leave them alone.