Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

You’ll flip for this adventure(s)

Double Booking: The Tail of the Mummy Cat by Pangburn, Kim Shearer and Nic Touris

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Do you remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books? (FYI: they still have them. ) Anyway, at first, I thought that the book, Double Booking: The Tail of the Mummy Cat by Pangburn, Kim Shearer and Nic Touris, was going to be one of them when I found an online reader copy of it (though currently available). I figured, well this will be interesting to try and read. Thankfully (or maybe not thankfully depending on if you think it might be fun to try a […]

Bronze Age Crete in modern tone

Minoan Wings V02 Swallow's Dance by Wendy Orr

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A companion to Minoan Wings V01 Dragonfly Song we follow a young woman on the eve of her first “bleeding” (mensuration) and what that means to her within her community in Minoan Wings V02 Swallow’s Dance. Several natural disasters mean that our narrators’ carefully ordered and privileged life is shattered. Eventually, these disasters leave her, her mother and their old nursemaid-slave homeless and alone in a strange new land. Realizing how her once higher status is now her greatest enemy, she must learn to put […]

Bronze-Age Crete

Minoan Wings V01 Dragonfly Song by Wendy Orr

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The novel Minoan Wings V01 Dragonfly Song is a contemporary toned story set in the Bronze Age. The historical facts were well researched by the author, Wendy Orr. And what is presented is not just the factual information, but also there is an arc about mythology and religion (such as the goddess worship vs the bull/masculine, the representation of the animals and nature), and one that feels like it has more modern ideas of equality and gender (the goddess, the mother,  the priestess, daughters). Though maternal ruled villages […]

That’s a nice tree

Deborah’s Tree by Jane Yolen

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Deborah’s Tree by Jane Yolen and illustrated by Cosei Kawa is a picture book that has multiple layers. It is a book on religion and women’s history. I knew the name Deborah was biblical but did not know the history of the woman behind the story. Deborah was a female judge. In fact, the only one the bible mentions. We follow Deborah from a child to an adult. We see her visions (let us put divine intervention aside for the moment and I will say […]

Et tu, Aristophanes?

Women & Power: A Manifesto by Mary Beard

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My very Catholic and moderately conservative auntie gave me this book for Christmas, since I’m the loud feminist in the family, and I actually think it’s really sweet of her that she thought of me when she saw that. I do feel like I’m cheating a bit for including this here though, it’s a very very short book, it’s the printed version of two speeches Mary Beard gave (I’ve heard of her through cultural osmosis but have never really come across any of her writings?) on […]

Your Roman holiday

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The one thing I have noticed with The Magic Tree House series, you do have to read them in order. As an adult, I can pick up something, but in Vacation Under the Volcano #13, Jack and Annie have had so many adventures you need to know some of the pieces of information given before to help explain a few things. However, it is a standalone title if you and your child talk about it. The story is basic: Jack and Annie go to Ancient […]



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