Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About The Chancellor

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(Learn more about this Cannonballer: The Chancellor's Quick Questions interview.)

The Chancellor's Reviews:

“I wonder what it would be like to be free?”

Before We Were Free by Julia Alvarez

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Before We Were Free by Julia Alvarez My rating: 3 of 5 stars It wasn’t until I was in college completing classes for my Spanish degree that I learned about the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. I was disappointed in my education up to that point, that I had never learned about this tragic time in Dominican history. Since college, I have rarely heard about Trujillo and his regime mentioned. I have taught one of Julia Alvarez’s short stories in my English classes and […]

The Convenience of Train Travel

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

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Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie My rating: 4 of 5 stars I’m not a big fan of mystery but Agatha Christie has a way of making look past that. Set in the years between WWI and WWII, “Murder on the Orient Express” has murder, glamor, intrigue, and train travel. Oh, and Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective that features in many of Ms. Christie’s books. Poirot is between cases and is looking forward to a vacation. We start in northern Syria as he […]

Learning About but Don’t Appropriate

Jewish Holidays: A Brief Introductions for Christians by Kerry M. Olitzky

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Jewish Holidays: A Brief Introduction for Christians by Kerry M. Olitzky My rating: 3 of 5 stars This book is a really good overview of Jewish holidays for those that are curious about their origins and practices, particularly from a Christian context. If you are looking for a “how-to” this is not that book. Like the title says, it’s brief. Each holiday is presented in it’s context from the Torah followed by a socio-historical context. There is an overview of how the holiday is practiced […]

Keep Pursuing Your Dreams

For Every One by Jason Reynolds

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For Every One by Jason Reynolds My rating: 5 of 5 stars Written as a letter-in-verse, “For Everyone” is Jason Reynolds’s encouragement to keep pursuing your dreams. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book when I picked it up from the book store shelf. I enjoy Jason Reynolds’s writing so that wasn’t a concern but at the time I hadn’t read a book that was one continuous poem. Even Reynolds himself said he wasn’t sure if this was a poem or a letter. […]

The Importance of Telling Stories

The Tiny Journalist by Naomi Shihab Nye

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The Tiny Journalist by Naomi Shihab Nye My rating: 3 of 5 stars This collections of poems is centered on the conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians, specifically the coverage of Israeli violence in the West Bank as recorded by a young woman, Janna, on her phone and on social media. She’s the titular young journalist. The other poems that fill out this collection are the poets thoughts on the invasion of Iraq. While both of these topics take place in the Middle East, I did […]

A Hive Mentality

Honeybee: Poems and Short Prose by Naomi Shihab Nye

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Honeybee: Poems and Short Prose by Naomi Shihab Nye My rating: 4 of 5 stars I’ve only read a few collections of poetry and this is one of the few I really liked. I rarely read poetry and when I do it’s usually individual poems and something I’m teaching. However, just like I tell my students, it’s always good to get out of your comfort zone. So in previewing collections to read I came across this one from Naomi Shihab Nye. I read and taught […]



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