Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Marvel Female Super Heroes: a primer

Marvel: Fearless and Fantastic - Female Super Heroes Save the World by Sam Maggs, Emma Grange, and Ruth Amos

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Our household is deep in super hero fandom but our actual knowledge is kind of sketchy, as it’s a mismash of cartoons from different eras and the various movies.  Because of this we are more familiar with DC female super heroes (Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Batgirl, etc.) and knew only a few Marvel female supers.  But that has been changing as we have found Ms. Marvel and Squirrel Girl comics and now the Captain Marvel movie.  We’re excited to learn about more female supers that fight […]

Gorgeous graphic novel with a dragon, a maiden, a warrior, and kites.

The Last Dragon by Jane Yolen (author), Rebecca Guay (art)

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 The Last Dragon is a beautiful book to hold.  Colors are muted and layered, nothing is a single flat shade.  Lighting has been carefully considered, illuminating and glowing as needed each panel.  The “maiden” is an herbalist’s daughter named, Tansy.  She is described as, “no color at all.  She seemed to blend in with her surroundings” and the artist, Rebecca Guay, did an incredible job showing this.  I also love the way Guay drew the dragon, so powerful and ferocious.  It reminds me of a […]

Sometimes it’s best to get out while you still can

Mr. Darcy's Debt by April Floyd

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Another foray into the world of Pride and Prejudice variations.  I’m not sure how I feel about this one.  In the prologue, Mr. Thomas Bennet is a young man who is friends with the Fitzwilliam family siblings, including Bertram, Reginald, Anne (who will be Darcy’s mother) and Catherine (who will be Lady Catherine).  The party goes ice skating, and Thomas ends up saving Bertram and Anne’s lives, but Bertram ultimately succumbs to the illness that follows. Grateful that his sister is safe, Bertram vows that […]

An adorable graphic novel series

Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke

Legends of Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke

The Return of Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke

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I am super happy that I picked up this series.  Ben Hatke is the author of one of my favorite picture books (Julia’s Home for Lost Creatures) and I got my copy signed at the New York Comic Con last year.  (He’s super nice, by the way!) He asked if I had read Zita yet, and I told him I had not, but would put her on my TBR list.  And then I found out that this year’s Summer Reading theme in our library is […]

I read this book because my waiter wrote it–and guys, you need to start talking to your waiters more often

Bonds of Destiny by Rajesh Varma

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A little backstory about me: I like food. My husband and I and one of our good friends have what we call a “dining club,” which essentially amounts to the three of us going out to dinner about once a month, ordering a bunch of wine, and seeing how many witticisms ludicrous statements and/or Monty Python quotes the two guys can drop into the conversation before I lose it. It’s a good time. In February, we went to an Indian restaurant in Glendale, California called the […]

National Poetry Month- what doesn’t kill you still hurts

Our Lady of the Ruins by Traci Brimhall

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When it comes to reading poetry, I tend to stick with the classic epic poems like Beowulf and The Odyssey or more contemporary YA poetry-as-novel (The Poet X, Brown Girl Dreaming). I can’t remember a time outside of a classroom when I read a poetry collection. So for the CBR book exchange last December, one of my suggestions for whomever was buying for me was a book of poems, and Cannonballer Bonnie sent me this slim but stunning and provocative collection by contemporary award-winning poet […]



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