Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Maybe it is or isn’t art, but the woman behind it made an impact

Ablaze with Color: A Story of Painter Alma Thomas by Jeanne Walker Harvey

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Ablaze with Color: A Story of Painter Alma Thomas by Jeanne Walker Harvey is a sweet story about a woman who we might not have heard of, but one that in many ways changed the world. Hitting many first landmarks, such as Almas Thomas was the first black woman to have an art show at a particular museum, she was the first contemporary artwork and first woman of color to have their work in the White House), but she also just seemed to be a […]

Reading Can Give you more than an education

Carter Reads the Newspaper: The Story of Carter G. Woodson, Founder of Black History Month by Deborah Hopkinson

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Carter Reads the Newspaper: The Story of Carter G. Woodson, Founder of Black History Month is a longer picture book, therefore, it might not be the best for an active child. It is filled with an accessible tone to the subject of the life and times of Woodson. The older listener (ages five and up) would be perfect. And even though it is in a picture book format ages seven to nine could use as a reference, but not as the only source. The book […]

Two out of three in Caste bingo (is not a game I want to win)

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

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I imagine at the end of the day this book is more like 3.5 stars that I am rounding up. I’d say it’s three star for what it is trying to do, but four stars if I take it at what (I thought) was face value. Which is to say, I just finished this book and feel 50/50 convinced by Wilkerson’s thesis that America suffers from a caste issue, as opposed to (or, above a) race issue. I am Indian-American, so taking a step back […]

High fives all around!

A High Five For Glenn Burke by Phil Bildner

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Sixth grader Silas Wade adores baseball, and it adores him. Center fielder for his middle-school league and the heart of the team, Silas loves to boost morale with good-natured pranks, spreading love of The Sandlot (aka the greatest movie of all time), but most importantly winning games.  For his middle school biography project, Silas turns to baseball too, and knocks it out of the park with a presentation on Glenn Burke, five-tool talent of the L.A. Dodgers in the 1970s, who not only killed it […]

Two women. Two powerhouses

The Power of Her Pen: The Story of Groundbreaking Journalist Ethel L. Payne by  Lesa Cline-Ransome

Marie Curie and the Power of Persistence by Karla Valenti

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Another recent health issue caused me to have a few days off from work and I did some reading. I first picked up a few picture books as I figured I could concentrate on them. And except for one book, they were all not easy. The first two were about women of history. Women that we might not know about or know about, but not everything. The Power of Her Pen: The story of Groundbreaking Journalist Ethel L. Payne by Lesa Cline-Ransome and John Parra is […]

More work to be done

The Black Cabinet: The Untold Story of African Americans and Politics During the Age of Roosevelt by Jill Watts

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

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The Black Cabinet: The Untold Story of African Americans and Politics During the Age of Roosevelt by Jill Watts was our Mocha Girls Read book club selection in June. It became a very timely selection after the horrible death of George Floyd, which shone a brighter light on Black Lives Matter activism in America. As a Black woman, I was suffering from emotional exhaustion during that time. This history book actually helped put so many current things in perspective. We have come a long way, […]



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