Tag: challenge

Kick off your New Year’s Reading Resolution with the 2026 Winter Reading Challenge

- Christine Leave a comment

A bean waves from in front of a fireplace. Text says "Read with Benny Winter Reading Challenge."

Is your New Year’s Resolution to read more in 2026? We have a great way to help you kick things off in January! From January 1 – 31, 2026, Davenport Library patrons are encouraged to Read with Benny (the bean) as part of the 2026 Winter Reading Challenge.

To participate, you can either log into Beanstack online or download the app to your phone or tablet. If you have participated in one of our online challenges before, log into your account. If you haven’t, you’ll have to create an account first. Once you have done so, search for Davenport Public Library challenges. You’ll see the “Read with Benny Winter Reading Challenge” logo that matches the one up above. Click on that, and you are entered!

What next? Read! Whether you like fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, audiobooks, or magazines, the library has something to help you meet this challenge! If you are looking for inspiration, check out the 2026 Online Reading Challenge or some of our recent blog posts about new materials in the library: New Memoirs and Biographies, Winners of the 2025 Goodreads Choice Awards, or Straight Off the Shelf.

People who complete the challenge will be entered into a prize drawing. Prizes are determined by age group:

  • Children’s Prize (0 – 11 years old): Enter to win a Tonies Bundle, including a Toniebox and assorted audiobooks and interactives to go with it!
  • Teen (11 – 19 years old): Enter to win a $75 gift card to The Atlas Collective and a YA Romance Book Bundle!
  • Adult (19+ years old): Enter to win a $100 Hyvee gift card along with a shopping tote and cookbook for inspiration!

Faith, Volume 1: Hollywood and Vine by Jody Houser, Francis Portela, Marguerite Sauvage

- Stephanie Leave a comment

faithFaith, Volume 1: Hollywood and Vine is a refreshing step back from the traditional female superhero tale. This first volume introduces Faith Herbert, a woman orphaned at a young age who has always wanted to do something great. Faith is a psionically gifted psiot, which basically means that Faith can fly and has telekinetic powers. She’s a body positive plus-size superhero known as the Zephyr. Pretty cool.

Now Faith is striking out on her own, having broke up with her superhero boyfriend and her crime-fighting superhero group all at almost the same time. She has decided to take control of her life and live how she’s always wanted to be: in control of her own destiny. This means that Faith is working a day job as a reporter with a secret identity and a group of colleagues who have no idea that she is Faith Herbert OR the Zephyr.

Patrolling at night, Faith stumbles upon a conspiracy revolving around the disappearances of multiple psiots around the city. Her private and public lives come to a screeching collision at her work place, where Faith is forced to mesh her two worlds together and hope things work out. The missing psiots occupy Faith’s mind, leaving her to patrol more and ask questions. She uncovers a mysterious plot to use the psiots by aliens. Of course it’s aliens. This conspiracy is deeply-rooted in entertainment, politics, and regular societies. Faith uses her superhero savvy to save the world, but finds she may need help.