Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Giraffe ferry

The GiRaft: A Real-Life Giraffe Rescue by Laurel Neme and Elisa Paganelli

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There is clever and there is clever but just misses the mark when it comes to a fun title. And this is a clever title. The GiRaft: A Real-Life Giraffe Rescue is an easily accessible book as it explains about people save some rare giraffes by using a raft to save it, after a natural event causes a serious situation.  But Laurel Neme gave us more than just that. There is history and environmentalism. There is love of animals and the land. There is a […]

If you let the wild in

The Wildest Thing by Emily Winfield Martin

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When I saw the cover of The Wildest Thing by Emily Winfield Martin I figured it was going to be a fun story. Nothing “wow” but not going to be dull either. And it is just that. We have a child letting their imagination run wild and bring out the wild within them. It is about play and individuality. It has some sweet illustrations that are not “too much” (not a lot of details, not a lot of color, not a lot of text to […]

Counting to Ten in Chinese Food

One Two Three Dim Sum by Rich Lo

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This book is very simple; it’s a kids book of the “let’s learn to count to 10” variety. It’s mostly simple pictures of dim sum or related items, appearing in amounts in ascending order. Besides the food theme, and colorful basic art, this counting book is in Mandarin Chinese. It’s got both the characters and the words written out for how to say “one menu” up to “ten fortune cookies”, Each page has three panels, one for the English word and Arabic numeral, one for […]

From dump to park

Once a Wasteland: From Toxic Dump to National Park by Diane Muldrow and Amy Jindra Hodgson

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Starting off almost poetically, Once a Wasteland: From Toxic Dump to National Park moves into the facts quickly. Everything is laid out in simple, but not simplistic terms. The overall tone is good, it allows you to access a piece of history and the extras allow the book to grow with the reader. However, “points” are lost due to the fact environmental stories are not new, it was not necessarily told in a new manner and I had questions that were not answered, such as […]

Of course, after building up this title, you will need to wait until April 2026 for reading

Unbreakable: A Japanese American Family in an American Incarceration Camp (A Picture Book) by Minoru Tonai, Jolene Gutiérrez, and Chris Sasaki

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When you read as many picture books as I do, once in a while one of two things (or both) can happen. The first is you think you’ve read it before (or at least a sample) or things start to feel similar due to similar subjects. A subject I am interested in are the Japanese-American internment camps from World War II.  This is partly because I have family who is Japanese-American and when I realized this could be them it made it personal (I know […]

What can a potato do?

Alberto Salas Plays Paka Paka con la Papa: Join the Quest with Peru's Famed Scientist and Potato Expert by Sara Andrea Fajardo and Juana Martinez-Neal

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As with several books I was not going to read, Alberto Salas Plays Paka Paka con la Papa: Join the Quest with Peru’s Famed Scientist and Potato Expert by Sara Andrea Fajardo and Juana Martinez-Neal (illustrator) was one of them, but it eventually found its way to my TBR pile as it was on a Best of 2025 Picture Book list. This was the final sign that told me I probably should read it. I was still nervous as when a book gets that hyped […]



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