Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Let’s Get Ready to RUUUUMMMBBBLLLE! But WITH consent

Let's Rumble!: A Rough-and-Tumble Book of Play by Rachel G. Payne

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A theme I am seeing more in young adult literature (and I hope in adult novels) is consent. Like many other things, the concept of consent has changed definitions. It used to be “you give agreement to an action by someone else and they can “do” what is agreed on.” Now, I have seen enthusiastic consent used due to the #MeToo culture. I was interested by this one word change, because while people have given consent, it was out of fear for their safety, their […]

Do you think I read a lot?

Clara the Triumphant Rhinoceros: A True Story by Jane Kurtz

Woody's Words : Woodrow Wilson Rawls and Where the Red Fern Grows by Lisa Rogers

Woods & Words: The Story of Poet Mary Oliver. by Sara Holly Ackerman

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Biographies are a fun genre.  You can find out fun facts about favorite authors, poets or even rhinoceroses. Yes, rhinoceroses can have a biography, too. After all, it is hard for them to hold a pencil in their hoof for them to write an autobiography. Therefore, I will start off with Clara the Triumphant Rhinoceros: A True Story (in case you doubt me that this is a biography of a rhino, there is “true story” in the title). Jane Kurtz created a story that gives […]

Get A LOT of boxes of tissues

Yumi and Monster by Kam Redlawsk

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Get your boxes of tissues and then you can read Yumi and Monster by Kam Redlawsk. Due in September 2025 I read this via an online reader copy. And while I am curious how the finished copy will look, I am not sure I can read this bittersweet picture book. Yumi is a little girl who loves to play, but both her parents and the doctors say that will change. One day she is given a cane to help her walk (only we don’t hear […]

Super-Sharks, Web Safety, and Instant Oatmeal (Animorphs 15-17)

The Escape by K.A. Applegate

The Warning by K.A. Applegate

The Underground by K.A. Applegate

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I skipped book 14 of the Animorphs because I heard it’s skippable and I need the grace period! I’m so behind! In The Escape (a Marco book), the kids learn that the Yeerks are attempting to infiltrate the Leerans, an aquatic psychic alien species. They hope to control Leerans to suss out enemies with said psychic powers. To aid this quest, they are creating a species of enhanced hammerhead sharks to act as their underwater muscle. This is the highest priority job for the Yeerks, […]

Dan! Dan! (Santat)! Is the man

Don't Trust Fish by Neil Sharpson

The Day the Books Disappeared by Joanna Ho and Caroline Kusin Pritchard

All the Hulk Feels by Dan Santat

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I like the illustrator Dan Santat. While I like the colors, the silliness and the medium to busy details, I have never been sure exactly what draws me. The nice thing is, there are a lot of titles (some he is the author as well of), to explore to figure it out.  And there are three new/recent ones that you should try out to see if you can help explain it to me. First, there is  Don’t Trust Fish by Neil Sharpson. It is a […]

Connecting a community one sock at a time

Magnolia Wu Unfolds it All by Chanel Miller

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Magnolia Wu is almost ten. She spends a lot of time at her parent’s establishment, the Bing Qi Ling Bubbles Laundromat. Her loneliness leads to lots of creative thinking: on one wall is her bulletin board of lost socks, lone socks left behind by customers. While new friend and California transplant Iris is visiting, a customer xenophobically Karens out on Magnolia’s mom, and Magnolia nearly throws out her sock wall in a fit of anger. But Iris proposes they start the NYC Sock Detective project, […]



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