Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Gotta get Busy busy busy

Olive & Pekoe: In Four Short Walks by Jacky Davis

Lizzy McTizzy and the Busy Dizzy Day by Sarah Weeks

Woke Baby by Theodore Taylor III

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Once upon a time there was girl who enjoyed reading. And she enjoyed telling other people about these books as well. This girl likes stories about friendship. And while she is not a dog person, she found a must have for dog lovers in a book about two doggie friends named Olive and Pekoe. Olive & Pekoe: In Four Short Walks by Jacky Davis, is a story that is broken up into four different walks. Each of these walks highlights how different these friends are, […]

I am a bloodsucker.

Seasons of Sacred Lust by Kazuko Shairashi

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This is a collected/selected set of poems by the Japanese poet Kazuko Shiraisha. This is the first of its kind, regarding this specific poet, and because of these limitations, this collection is less good than it could be. Two specific issues arise here: one, translated works are already fraught with potential issues, and poetry especially. Two, a selected/collected poetry collection often places ill-suited poems side by side as opposed to one written in a given space of time or related set of themes. So this […]

“Everything that disappears / Disappears as if returning somewhere.”

Life on Mars: Poems by Tracy K. Smith

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April is National Poetry Month! If you want to celebrate and aren’t sure where to start, consider Tracy K. Smith’s Life on Mars. Here are three reasons why: This book won a Pulitzer Prize. The cover art is an awesome photo of space. My friend Deandra recommends this book. The themes of Life on Mars are wide-ranging. Existence, love, death, the future, our ephemeral nature – it’s all here, with a cosmos-minded sci-fi flavor. You’ll find a lot of references to the stars, as well as […]

Raven’s Family Tree

Squirrel’s Family Tree by Beth Ferry

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Raven’s Family Tree…. I mean Squirrel’s Family Tree is really a 4.5 rating as it is not my OMG FAVORITE book ever, but it is a book with some strong pieces to it. The story is about how squirrels and oak trees depend on each other. If the oak tree did not grow, the squirrel would not have a home or acorns to eat. And since the squirrels bury the acorns, and forget where most of them are stashed, oak trees can grow from these […]

Innocence vs. experience and everything in between

Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier

Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake

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Poetry lovers, or really anyone who has taken an introduction to English literature class, will recognize the title of this Tracy Chevalier novel as a line from the William Blake poem “The Tyger”: Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? “The Tyger” is probably the most famous poem in Blake’s classic poetry collection Songs of Innocence and Experience, first printed by Blake himself in 1789. In Burning Bright, Chevalier borrows heavily from […]

It Feels Good to Be Yourself: says it all

It Feels Good to Be Yourself by Theresa Thorn

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It Feels Good to Be Yourself: A Book about Gender Identity is coming in May 2019 and I can already see it on every banned and challenged list out there. This book is not going to change your feelings on the subject, but it might give you a new or expanded language to use. Also, due to the accessibility of the text to children, it helped explain a few terms I was still unsure of their meaning. Therefore, this introduction to this subject can span […]



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