Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Doom Thorax has the Power (of reading)

Doom's Day Camp by Joshua Hauke

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I honestly was surprised at how much I liked the graphic novel, Doom’s Day Camp by Joshua Hauke. At first, I felt it was just going to be “dumb humor” or “not for everyone offbeat and off color humor” but most of it turned out to be pretty classy. (Okay! Okay! There is one earth shattering f**t, but it did save the day! And frankly, f**ts are funny if they happen to someone else.) The ideas, of course, have been done before (a nerd/uncool kid […]

Lots of Good Stuff in these books

Colorful Mondays: A Bookmobile Spreads Hope in Honduras by Nelson Rodriguez

Fiona the Fruit Bat by Dan Riskin

What's Inside a Bird's Nest?: And Other Questions about Nature & Life Cycles by Rachel Ignotofsky

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I like books. You like books. The neighborhood in Tegucigalpa, Honduras likes books. And Luis likes books in Colorful Mondays: A Bookmobile Spreads Hope in Honduras. A lot. And he cannot wait for the bookmobile to come once a week. He cannot wait for the adventures he will find inside books. And he cannot wait for the happy feelings he gets by reading, then telling, the stories. Nelson Rodriguez, Leonardo Agustin Monetes, Rosana Faria, Carla Tabora, and Lawrence Schimel got together and wrote, illustrated and […]

But who reads to the monsters?

I Will Read to You by Gideon Sterer

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When the publisher’s review of the book starts off with “A gentle blend of spooky and sweet” you pretty much have said the majority of what you need to know about the book. However, you also could say that in I Will Read to You Gideon Sterer has a young boy who wonders who reads to the monsters of the world. He has his mom to read to him, but who do they have? When the mom says no one, because they are monsters, our […]

Bloody Magic Books and the Future Reread

Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Torzs

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You know it’ a good read when you start thinking about re-reading a book as soon as you finish it for the first time. Ink Blood Sister Scribe is the first book like that for me in a pretty long while. In some ways the premise is familiar but it still works: Esther and Joanna are half sisters from a family who guards a collection of magic books, but they’ve been separated for years for reasons neither of them fully understands; they need to reunite […]

Based on the Icelandic tradition of Jólabóka-flóðið

The Christmas Book Flood by Emily Kilgore

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The Christmas Book Flood by Emily Kilgore celebrates Jolabokaflod in a special way. This is a delightfully illustrated book, by Kitty Moss, about the joys of finding the right book as the right gift, and the family that you give it too. Then, while reading on Christmas eve with you hot chocolate (or chocolate bar), we see how the spirit of the season is among us. Based on the Icelandic tradition, we have a diverse family, their friends, and community waiting and getting ready for […]

A Remembrance of Things Past

Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen : Reflections on Sixty and Beyond by Larry McMurtry

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I have great affection for everything about this book: the Dairy Queen cover photo, the West Texas rumination, the author’s cherishing of books and words. What a delicious book. That DQ photo reminds me of the Dairy Queen I’d often stop at in Goldthwaite, Texas, at the intersection of Highway 183 and 16. I used to go there as a teenager when driving to college. Now I take my own kids there now when passing through. A DQ can be a cultural hub in a […]



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