Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About crystalclear

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Crystalclear can usually think of something clever to say, except when she can't. She has a giant stack of unread books at home but will always find an excuse to buy/acquire/borrow another one. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: crystalclear's Quick Questions interview.)

crystalclear's Reviews:

One of my top recommendations right now!

Stepsister by Jennifer Donnelly

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This is a Cinderella retelling focusing on one of the ugly stepsisters.  There is magic in this story, but also a lot of realism. We start with Isabelle, the younger of the stepsisters, getting ready to reluctantly cut off her toes to fit into the glass slipper.  Her older sister, Octavia, has already cut off her heel and was caught out, so now it’s Isabelle’s turn to try to secure their future. As expected, it doesn’t turn out well. The tale of Cinderella has a […]

A Joy to listen to!

Jukebox Joyride by Jacob Stein, Jason Rabinowitz

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This was an Audible Originals pick for I think June, and I’m glad I picked it up. George and Jules are 11-year-old twins, and they love music.  George plays the guitar and Jules plays the drums, and they’re pretty good musicians.  They’re also pretty good kids, as evidenced by their interactions with their absent-minded mom.  Their love of music comes from their Uncle Bob, who is a top-notch ethnomusicologist. But Uncle Bob has disappeared.  Not just, left for work one day and was never heard […]

Sometimes it feels like people try too hard

Snack, Snooze, Skedaddle by Laura Purdie Salas, Claudine Gevry

My Footprints by Bao Phi, Basia Tran

To Catch an Elephant by Vanessa Westgate

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Snack, Snooze, Skedaddle Laura Purdie Salas, Claudine Gevry The illustrations are really nice and bright!  The rhyming lines flow easily and work well with being read aloud.  It focuses on the three ways animals deal with winter – migrating, hibernating, and tolerating.  There are examples provided for each one, including some not usually covered in books about winter!  The end of the book has information in greater detail about the topics and animals covered, and there is a glossary for terms that may not be […]

More than I was expecting

The Okay Witch by Emma Steinkellner

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Wow.  This packed way more of a punch than I was expecting!  Moth is a 13 year-old girl growing up in a coastal town in Massachusetts.  She feels kind of out of place and doesn’t really have any friends, but she goes along with life anyway.  When learning about the witch hunts that took place in town in the late 1600’s, something strange happens to Moth.  Running home to tell her mother, she learns that she is from a family of witches! Moth wants to […]

Friendship can be found in the strangest of places

Little Robot by Ben Hatke

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Ben Hatke works his magic again!  He creates a beautiful story with only a few words, and most of those are sound effects! A little girl (she doesn’t have a name) finds an abandoned robot, and he becomes her friend.  It’s her only friend, as it turns out. I’m pretty sure she’s young, too young to go to school, and spends her days escaping her trailer park home and exploring the local junkyard. (We get all of this in about eight pages and absolutely no […]

Mistakes were made, but that’s totally okay!

The Book of Mistakes by Corinna Luyken

Princesses Are Not Perfect by Kate Lum, Illustrated by Sue Hellard

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The Book of Mistakes by Corinna Luyken This consists mostly of brief text and simple drawings.  We go on a journey of what happens when someone makes a mistake, this time with art.  The artist makes a mistake, and in the process makes another mistake in trying to fix it.  But then they try something else that turns out well. Mistakes keep getting made, but the fixing of them sends the project on an entirely new direction. This teaches us that instead of constantly erasing […]



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