Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Two school stories

Scare School Diaries V01 Welcome to Scare School by Jarrett Lerner

Bright Family: Too Cool For School by Gabe Soria

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I know school just got out and probably the last thing a kid wants to do is read about the first day of school. However, for the aged six to nine (and lower ten-year-old) readers, these books will make your child want to go to school. And maybe you can convince them that a snot monster and a (spoiler) glob custodian will be at their school. But even if you can’t, these books are worth taking a few moments to read to your child, with […]

Fairy Tales: a genre by and for “we the people”

Old Wives' Fairy Tale Book by Angela Carter

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I picked up this fairy tale collection in Tim’s Books, a tiny off-the-path used bookstore in Provincetown, because it had Angela Carter’s name on it, and I’ve been dedicating my book-buying to hoarding collections by the best fairy tale scholars, especially the feminist ones. It has, as you can see, a delightfully dated cover, but its ideas are very radical and timeless. The book is a selection of fairy tales and folktales chosen by Carter (author of the brilliant The Bloody Chamber), highlighting some of the […]

“Imagination is hungry, and needs to be fed.”

You Like It Darker by Stephen King

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I have long maintained that, for me, Stephen King’s short stories and novellas hit harder than most of his books. I just like them more; they are snappier. While I do enjoy taking my 1,000-plus-page journey to Derry in IT, sometimes it’s nicer to have a story come in, do its thing, and then leave. You Like It Darker is Stephen King’s latest short story collection and is a mix of previously published stories (something I did not realize until I was like, “Wait… have […]

Gender nonconformity Pride

Breathe: Journeys to Healthy Binding by Maia Kobabe and Sarah Peitzmeier

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I will start my review of Breathe: Journeys to Healthy Binding with I am a cisgender female who has never experienced the body dysmorphia the people interviewed in this book have experienced/are experiencing. I understand disliking one’s body and the emotional results that can create, as I have had my own issues with body love, but I cannot understand the depth that impact can take on one when it is not only not “right” by not only “looking wrong”,  but also is the wrong gender […]

“Only living here wasn’t exactly turning out to be normal.”

Night of the Living Queers by Shelly Page and Alex Brown

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In honor of Pride month (well, actually, Overdrive selected it for me because it was available, and, fortuitously, it fits the theme!), I picked up Night of the Living Queers, edited by Shelly Page and Alex Brown. This YA short story collection, which is unfortunately named, in my opinion, was terrific. As with any short story collection, there were a few stories that didn’t work so well for me, but as a collection, writing quality was uniformly high, the variety was delicious in terms of […]

I read two fun books

The Chilling Ice Rink Escapade by Michael Anthony Steele

Willa and Wade and the Way-Up-There by Judith Henderson

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Two books I recently read to help cleanse the palette some more (I was still working on a horror book I thought was Young Adult, but would lean a bit more adult, and therefore, more graphic , so maybe it was “new adult?” But regardless it was a lot to take and I needed “happy time” to clean my brain) and to see if one of them was good for the nephew. I picked up (as an online reader copy) Willa and Wade and the […]



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