Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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 […]

In 2017 Wisconsin cheesemakers produced 704,093,000 pounds of cheddar.

Cheese The Making of a Wisconsin Tradition by Jerry Apps

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Cheese: the Making of a Wisconsin Tradition is an example of what is both good and bad with history writing. On the good side, it’s pretty well-researched and lots of good factual info; on the bad, it’s kind of dry and there’s very little narrative continuity. The opening section is an introduction to the subject, meaning some technical definitions, the author’s personal interest, and brief historical overview. The history starts with farmers settling the areas now called Wisconsin and home-cheesemaking. The transition to dairy farming […]

“You kids are different from the farm animals who have no way out. Running away in order to live is fine. Perfectly fine.”

Silver Spoon Vol. 1-15 by Hiromu Arakawa

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CBR14Bingo: Series (it’s a series) This is one of my favorite manga series and one I was re-reading again just out of a desire to read something cheerful and warm-hearted. Silver Spoon is by the same author as Fullmetal Alchemist, her much more famous work. It follows Yuugo Hachiken, who decides to go to an agricultural high school in rural Hokkaido because he hit a plateau in mainstream academia and was pushing himself so hard to succeed that he’d lost all enjoyment in life. By going […]

The Only Winner Here is Corn.

The Scientist and The Spy by Mara Hvistendahl

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On one hand, I enjoyed reading The Scientist and the Spy, really. Mara Hvistendahl has given us a really compelling account of economic espionage. But Christ, this book is a sticky one. It covers multiple topics I’m interested in: genetics, agriculture, international relations and intellectual property—and political shit-storms. But it also makes me want to bang my head against the wall while crying out ‘everyone’s a pack of arseholes’ because that was basically the only conclusion I could come to. But with a story this […]

How much hay can a farmer hay if a farmer… waaaaiiit they CAN HAY!

Hey, Hey, Hay!: A Tale of Bales and the Machines That Make Them by Christy Mihaly

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If you have not guessed, I have been reading a lot of picture books, but not writing reviews. (What do you do with a reviewer like Raven? Just wait, she’ll get there eventually….) And one book I finally got to was Hey, Hey, Hay!: A Tale of Bales and the Machines That Make Them by Christy Mihaly. This is a cute story about how you make the hay. Or in other words, how one kids family bales the hay to be stored for winter. The fun […]

Want Chocolate? Get a Monkey.

No Monkeys, No Chocolate by Melissa Stewart

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Do you know how chocolate is made? It is made by monkeys. No, really! Melissa Stewart and Allen Young say so in No Monkeys, No Chocolate. Let me explain about how this book shows you that. There are three parts of the book: The first is the basic story about how cocoa beans become chocolate. The second part is a paragraph underneath it is simple sentence going into more detail about that creature or plants role in creating cocoa trees/cocoa beans. Finally, the third part […]



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