Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Ducking ducks and Women in Pants!

Mr. McCloskey’s Marvelous Mallards: The Making of Make Way for Ducklings by Emma Bland Smith

Cloaked in Courage: Uncovering Deborah Sampson, Patriot Soldier by Beth Anderson

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This tale by Emma Bland Smith is the one that imagines how things went when Robert McCloskey decided to write Make Way For Ducklings. Their take is a bit poetic license I am sure, however Mr. McCloskey’s Marvelous Mallards: The Making of Make Way for Ducklings, is a fun way to see how one of his most famous works was made. From real ducklings to full grown ducks; from editors not willing to take the “okay” and from his own need to have things perfect, […]

Fear and oppression

Restless by Joseph Kai

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This graphic novel by Joseph Kai, Restless,  is a quick but not easy read. Things are a bit abstract, surreal and very introspective all at once.  The reality of the times and the dreams and fears Kai’s character unfolds is a bumpy path. The art is either a like or not, really little to no in-between. There are possible triggers with nudity, violence, sexual situations, and GLBTQ issues. Overall, this book is not for everyone, but perhaps everyone should read it. We are looking into […]

Something sweet

On the Corner of Chocolate Avenue: How Milton Hershey Bought Milk Chocolate to America by Tziporah Cohen

Milloo's Mind: the Story of Maryam Faruqi, Trailblazer for Women's Education by Reem Faruqi

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This is the first year I do not have a nephew in school. I have three cousins who are still going (one who is a junior or senior in high school, one almost in high school and one almost (or is) junior high), but it is not the same. Do I feel old? A little, but because I am mostly young at heart, and I can read picture books, I can still think I am that kid reading 100 books for summer reading challenges and […]

CBR15 Bingo: Queer Lives (Bingo)

All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson

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CBR15 Bingo: Queer Lives In July, the Forever Young Adult Reading Challenge prompt was Banned Books. Since All Boys Aren’t Blue was the second most banned book in America during the 2021-2022 school year, only beaten by Gender Queer, and I’d had the book on my digital bookshelf for a while, it felt like a suitable book to choose. This book was also one of the book club selections last year for the Cannonball book club, when we did banned books (this year we did […]

“Food was how my mother expressed her love.”

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

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I’d seen Crying in H Mart (2021) by Michelle Zauner on Barack Obama’s Recommended Reading List as well as NPR’s Best Books, but it never really called to me. My husband read it last year, but he was very vague on what it was about: he said it was a woman feeling lost about her life (or something). So that didn’t really make me want to read it either. But I never forgot it, and when I needed a book about Asia for Bingo, I thought it just […]

“Writing, regardless of the end result—whether good or bad, published or not, well reviewed or slammed—means celebrating beauty in an often ugly world.”

The Art of the Memoir by Mary Karr

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CBR 15 Bingo – North America I was gifted this book for my 40th birthday as I had made it known to many of my friends that I started working on my own memoir-ish book. In the time since I started my book, I have stopped and started and stalled many times over so I waited months to crack this open, as it sat taunting me, bursting with the expertise of the lauded memoirist Mary Karr. When I finally got over myself and begrudgingly and […]



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