Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Let’s stop all the fight (Now)”

War Is Over by Sean Ono Lennon, Dave Mullins, Brad Booker, Max Narciso

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[Intro: Yoko Ono & John Lennon] Happy Christmas, Kyoko Happy Christmas, Julian [Verse 1: John Lennon] So this is Christmas And what have you done? Another year over And a new one just begun And so this is Christmas I hope you had fun The near and the dear ones The old and the young [Chorus: Yoko Ono & Harlem Community Choir] A very merry Christmas And a happy New Year Let’s hope it’s a good one Without any fear [Verse 2: John Lennon & Harlem Community […]

Down With The Miss Vicky’s!

Down with Lime Books!: A Story about Book Banning by Jan Zauzmer

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Miss Vicky might tell us Down with Lime Books! But what she does not realize is that the kids like lime books, and pink and purple, and blue, and yellow and read…. I mean red. Yes they love to read them all. Of course, this humorous look at book banning is silly and a bit tongue in cheek, but Down with Lime Books!: A Story about Book Banning by Jan Zauzmer and Blanca Millán is about a serious subject As mentioned, the character Miss Vicky […]

I wrote a long review about two books and it’s longer than the books probably…

Sun, Moon, and Star: A Folktale from Korea. by Nancy So Miller

Beatrix and Her Friends by Anne Lambelet

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Folktales have always been a go-to read for me. I enjoy learning about other cultures and seeing how they have been interpreted. Plus, I enjoy comparing them with other cultures’ stories. One true folktale (it even says so in the title) is  Sun, Moon, and Star: A Folktale from Korea. The other, while not a pure folktale, I consider her stories to be folktale adjacent. It is a biography of Beatrix Potter, aptly named, Beatrix and Friends. Nancy So Miller took an established story of […]

“When they ban a book, they’re really just trying to cover up something they don’t want you to know.”

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Recently a coworker asked us to send some of our favorite Banned and Challenged book titles and a little snippet about it and/or why we love it.  I emailed her back and said did she want them alphabetically, order of importance or just my favorite? How did I approach it? I thought, send a few favorite author(s), but that was too many. Just every book I read that has been B-and/or-C? Way too many to do. Therefore I said “Make it simple.” And found a […]

Moving Beyond the “Great” Men

The Problem with Great Men by Hallie Rubenhold

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A couple of weeks ago an essay that Hallie Rubenhold had presented for the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2020 as part of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction Lecture came to my attention, and I slid it into the TBR. The Problem with Great Men hits on so many of the things that are bothering me professionally these days and reminds me why I got into the work of public history in the first place.   Rubenhold lays out how nearly 200 years ago (1840 to be exact) essayist Thomas Carlyle gave his lecture series “On Heroes […]

1930s Cinema History

Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema; 1930-1934 by Thomas Doherty

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Are you looking for a primer on how the enforcement of what became known as the Hayes Code on the movie business in the 1930s impacted what came before and after 1934? I might have the book for you. In 1999 Thomas Doherty published what might be considered the go to book on early 1930s Hollywood, deep diving the various social forces at work and how they effected the creative output of the artists (and businesspeople) in Hollywood.   The Code was adopted in 1930 but was without any enforcement measures. By 1934, however, the enforcement was […]



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