Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The name I can never spell right on the first try

The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo

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This was a book I was sure I had read, because I feel like it’s been around forever.  Nope! 2003. (Maybe I saw the movie in 2008?) It feels like an older book as well. So if the author was going for a classic feel, she got it!  There is the story, but sometimes the author asks questions of the reader, often with vocabulary. Good for reading with a group!   The book is set up in four sections.  In the first part, we meet […]

This review has been inspired by the Thug Notes “Pride and Prejudice” episode. Also, spoilers.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

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So we have our girl Catherine Morland, one of ten Morland siblings.  She’s the son of a preacher man, so that’s cool. She starts out life as a tomboy, but gets over that by the time she turns fifteen.  Now seventeen, she gets to go on a sweet vacation to Bath with her neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Allen. Mr. Allen is going for his gout, and Mrs. Allen wants Catherine to go for company.  I suppose Mrs. Allen also knows that going on a six-week […]

Not what I was expecting

No Ivy League by Hazel Newlevant

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This… was not what I was expecting.  With a title like this, I was assuming this was going to involve prestigious colleges.  Not even close. I picked this ARC up at BookCon this year. I went to the publisher, Lion Forge, because I wanted to get a ticket for Mooncakes the next day.  (Which I got. Woohoo!) They still had tickets for this, so I figured, “Why not?” This is a graphic novel memoir about a summer in the life of author Hazel Newlevant.  She […]

What’s your book about? Stuff.

Stuff Matters by Mark Miodownik

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This book is meant to make you think about all the stuff that surrounds you.  Not the clutter, but the stuff that that clutter is made of. The metal in your chair, the cloth of your clothes, the paper of the book you’re reading.  We take the materials in our world largely for granted, but there was a lot of time and effort put in to discovering and inventing all of the materials that we encounter in our daily lives.  The book is divided into […]

Neat.

A Grown-Up Guide to Dinosaurs by Ben Garrod

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Ok, so I just finished listening to this today (when I wrote this review, which is actually being posted months later).  These are the things I remember from the audiobook. To be fair, I was listening on my commute to work, so some distraction from listening is to be expected, you know, because I was driving a vehicle.    Thing 1: Part of what makes a dinosaur a dinosaur has to do with the hips.  Dinosaurs evolved to have their hips configured in a way […]

A great graphic novel series for kids! (And adults too!)

Mighty Jack by Ben Hatke

Mighty Jack and the Goblin King by Ben Hatke

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Mighty Jack Jack is a normal teenage boy who would like to sleep in during the summer.  But he can’t, because he has to mind his sister, Maddy, who is nonverbal and on the autism spectrum.  Their mother has started working a second job to pay the bills, because they are in dire financial straits.  At a flea market, a mysterious stranger offers them strange seeds. Maddy speaks, and tells Jack to buy them.  The price is the family car, which is not pleasing to […]



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