Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About BlackRaven

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I am a Professional Book Pusher. Reading is a passion, as is writing, bragging about nephews, and alligator wrestling. My first year participating was 2018. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: BlackRaven's Quick Questions interview.)

BlackRaven's Reviews:

Two girls, couple mysteries and basketball.

Shirley and Jamila Save Their Summer by Gillian Goerz

Shirley and Jamila's Big Fall by Gillian Goerz

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When ten-year-olds Shirley and (new girl) Jamila meet accidentally at a local tag sale, their summer takes an interesting turn, one that neither expected it to take. They not only find a way to not go to the summer camps their mothers have signed them up for and find a bit of freedom, they also solve a case of stolen property and a missing gecko, not to mention they become friends. All of this and a bit more happens in Shirley and Jamila Save Their […]

When the clock doesn’t tick

Hourglass by Barbara Mazzi

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Twenty is just a cog in the wheel of the utopian society in Hourglass by Barbara Mazzi. Or at least for  the privileged.  Twenty is trying for one of the coveted positions on the team of engineers. If you make it to the top the reward is everything. But until then, they help keep the Hour Glass running so the privileged few can reap the reward of immortality. But when a real piece of the machine goes missing, more than the Hour Glass will fall […]

Let’s take this to the neck level

The Confessional by Paige Hender

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Recently I entered a “Grab a Galley” sweepstakes thingie and I have been honored to win a few that I really wanted. But one of them I was on the fence about putting my name in for. This was The Confessional by Paige Hender. But (and I know one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover) the cover was calling me. Which might not be a good thing since it is about vampires. Picture it: New Orleans, 1922. Cora Velasquez is a fairly newly turned […]

Magic!!! (jazz hands)

Pacheco and the Witch of the Mountain: A Graphic Novel by Juan E. Zambrano

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We have seen this story before: Boys cannot do magic. They cannot be witches. The non witches also think witches are evil and bad. Witches think non witches are beneath them and if they have any trace of magic it is not pure and therefore not worthy of paying attention to.  But in Pacheco and the Witch of the Mountain: A Graphic Novel by Juan E. Zambrano (due June 2025) this story is told with a bit of fun and humor, plus a few twists […]

The Myth, the Magic, The Woman

Medea by Blandine Le Callet

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In Medea by Blandine Le Callet, Nancy Peña (Illustrator), Montana Kane (Translator) the question you must first ask yourself is can you trust this narrator or not? Then, are you seeing the true story or not? Has she been villainized to take blame away from the real culprits? Or is she the monster history says? Those questions and more, will come alive in this adaptation of Medea’s story.  The afterwards show how the historical, myth and magic all came together, along with the creators adaptations, […]

I wanna be her when I grow up!

Wanda Hears the Stars: A Blind Astronomer Listens to the Universe by Amy S. Hansen, Wanda Diaz Merced and Rocio Arreola Mendoza

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Of course astronomers are not people we see a lot in biographies for children and especially women astronomers. But when you find a book called Wanda Hears the Stars: A Blind Astronomer Listens to the Universe you think, “Did I see that right? A female astronomer?”  Then you see the word “blind” and realize she was also blind. What the fudge…..????? And, yes, we read that right. Amy S. Hansen with Wanda Díaz Merced, and illustrated by Rocio Arreola  Mendoza created a book about Merced. […]



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