Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

There’s a lot to unpack and my suitcase isn’t big enough

My Father, the Panda Killer by Jamie Jo Hoang

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After finishing My Father, the Panda Killer by Jamie Jo Hoang, I texted a friend to tell her I had finally finished the difficult book I was reading. It was difficult as the pacing felt slow to me and the subject is far from easy. The main character is the first generation to be born in the states after her parents fled war-torn Vietnam during/after the war. We, like the narrator Jane, learn about things in snippets with her having to fill in the blanks. […]

The classic and this reviewers review

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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I have finally read The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. While texting a friend, I said to her I think one of the issues I have with this book is that it has been so popular and pushed so hard as one of the greatest books ever written, that I think my skepticism came to light early on. I mean, how can anything be that good? If you have to force people to think something is good by pushing it so much, it has […]

A friend recommended

One Little Goat: A Passover Catastrophe by Dara Horn

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A friend and I have talked about books for as long as we’ve known each other. She is a daughter, sister, mother, grandmother, author (both fiction and nonfiction, for both adults and teens), a reader and much much more. But one thing she was not was a graphic novel reader. Well, as you might know, I am a reader of the genre. So I said to her, give it a shot and here are recommendations, even sending her a few books. Well, one day she […]

The Wheat Whisper or Father of the Green Revolution,

Hero for the Hungry : The Life and Work of Work of Norman Borlaug by Peggy Thomas

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While back, an email came into my possession containing the (currently available) reader copy of Hero for the Hungry : The Life and Work of Work of Norman Borlaug  by Peggy Thomas and illustrator Sam Kalda. The first part of the first half was interesting. It gave a nice introduction to the man that was Norman Borlaug. Starting with him as a young farm child to his college years, we see how he would eventually end up in Mexico learning as much as he would […]

The grandfather, the boy, the guitar and the song

The One About the Blackbird by Melanie Florence

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Bring the tissues when you read The One About the Blackbird by Melanie Florence and illustrator Matt James (read via an online reader copy, due later October 2025). This is a bittersweet story of the love of a grandson and grandfather and how the tables turn as time goes by, but music always pulls them together. The story is about how a young boy is always surrounded by music. One night he tells his grandfather he, too, wants to make music like his favorite song […]

Seeing through touch, taste, smell, and sound

I Hear the Snow, I Smell the Sea by Janice Milusich and Chris Raschka

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I Hear the Snow, I Smell the Sea is a lovely, poetic text and soft classical story that also has several modern takes. Author Janice Milusich’s text and Chris Raschka styled illustrations make up this familiar season’s story (we have a child who follows the seasons in the usual ways by talking about the sun, how things feel, colors and more) but this time there is a wonderful twist of having a visually impaired narrator. This narrator must experience these things differently, therefore seems to […]



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