Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Navigating grief and mermaids in the Caribbean

A Comb of Wishes by Lisa Stringfellow

by Leave a Comment

Kela and her father have been pretty lost on their Caribbean island of St. Rita since Kela’s mother died. Her father spends his days manning his shop while Kela avoids friends, collecting sea glass for her jewelry projects. One day, she finds a mysterious looking antique comb in a coral reef. She is drawn to it. What she doesn’t realize is that she has stolen a mermaid’s comb, and its owner Ophidia is crushed by its loss. Her grudge against humans doesn’t leave Ophidia feeling […]

I feel like there’s a Tracy Chapman song in there somewhere

Wildseed Witch by Marti Dumas

by 4 Comments

I feel like Tracy Chapman could read Wildseed Magic by Marti Dumas and find a song or five to write about. This is an absolutely lovely novel aimed at tweens ages 10-14. It is literally about Black Girl Magic. For a novel that could very easily be compared in many ways with Harry Potter, I would recommend this one any day of the week over that series. It has a multitude of themes and all of them are handled with a deft touch. It centers […]

“Sylvia did reach her dream of becoming a ballerina. And it all started with one determined girl with one library book from one bookmobile.”

Ready to Fly: How Sylvia Townsend Became The Bookmobile Ballerina by Lea Lyon & A. LaFaye, Illustrations by Jessica Gibson

by Leave a Comment

We’re gonna start off today’s review by (potentially? I don’t think I’ve talked about this here before) learning a new thing about NTE: I used to be a dancer. Before my body decided that anything that required even standing was completely out of the question (so from age 3-15, basically), being a dancer was a major part of my identity. I danced five days a week – tap, ballet, jazz, lyrical, contemporary, & pointe. Pointe was – by far – my worst class (I had […]

Self-love out of self-loathing: Genesis Begins Again

Genesis Begins Again by Alicia D. Williams

by Leave a Comment

Genesis has taken hating herself to a new level: she has a long list of reasons she can’t stand herself and she’s adding to it every day. She gets help, too: from her father, who can’t help commenting in his drunken rants on how she had to end up dark like him instead of light like her beautiful mother, to the kids at school who’ve covered every cruel name for her dark skin.  Genesis has a hard time making friends anyway. Every time she starts […]

Black girl poetic magic

by 1 Comment

Electric Arches is collection of poetry by Eve L. Ewing. Her poems muse on the black experience. She reveals painful moments of racism she encounters and add in handwritten font her imagined replies to the N-word. She writes odes to her musical heroes in “Appletree [on black womanhood, from and to Erykah Badu] and “On Prince”. Each poem describes how their music touched her soul. She uplifts the ordinary with her words adding a fantastical gloss of wonder. “so in this world, grease is a compliment, no […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo