Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

How others see you and how you see yourself can be very different

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

Love, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

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Stargirl Jerry Spinelli   I didn’t read Jerry Spinielli growing up, which I guess might seem odd because he was writing books for my age group.  I read one of his middle grade books a few years ago, but this was the first one aimed at teens.  I’d heard about it, and there’s a movie now, so I figured I would give it a shot.   I’m not sure when this book is supposed to take place.  We know where, the fictional town of Mica, […]

Worth the hype!

The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen

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The Magic Fish By Trung Le Nguyen   I knew this book had won awards going in, but I wasn’t really sure what to expect.  Whatever awards this got, it most definitely deserved!   Going in, I knew that it was about a Vietnamese boy, Tíển, struggling to find the words to come out to his parents, while bonding with them over fairy tales.  But it is so much more than that.  It is a story about family and immigration and survival.  It’s about acceptance […]

Classic Book + Angsty Teen = Not Worth It

The "Wonderful" Wizard of Futher-Mucking Oz by Matt Youngmark

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The “Wonderful” Wizard of Futher-Mucking Oz By Matt Youngmark   I’ve had this in my TBR Amazon cart for a while, and lo and behold, on Prime Day it was on sale!  Used, but that’s ok.  (Even more ok – it’s signed by the author!)   This is not the most original of books.  A foul-mouthed teenager gets transported into a book and must play out the story in order to escape it and theoretically go home.  Our foul-mouthed teenager is Arabella Grimsbro, our book […]

Black Girl Scientific Joy

Ada Twist, Scientist by Andrea Beaty

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There are so many adorable kids’ books available these days. I often catch myself admiring the shelf and smiling when visiting the bookstore. I really love the concept behind the Questioneers series from Andrea Beaty. She does a great job spotlighting children from various cultures. Each book follows a child and their dream career, many of them in STEM. There are also accompanying activity books to introduce these careers and topics beyond the main book. Series Synopsis: The Questioneers series is a celebration of STEM, […]

“She looked in the mirror and gasped. Melissa gasped back at her. For a long time, she stood there, just blinking. George smiled, and Melissa smiled too.”

Melissa's Story by Alex Gino

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In one word: Charming Cannonball Read Bingo: They She He In one word: Charming Cannonball Read Bingo: They She He I don’t read any children’s literature, aside from an occasional revisit of a childhood fave or a few failed attempts to do a tandem read-a-long with my kiddo. I picked up George for him to read, having seen it at the library and hearing about it years ago from my favorite podcast, Literary Disco. They did an episode where they read George and Lumberjanes, and […]

Tech-free? Either a nightmare or a dream!

Unplugged by Gordon Korman

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Unplugged By Gordon Korman   Not gonna lie, I picked this up because there was a cute little lizard on the cover holding a power cord in its mouth.   Jett Baranov is the son of the emperor of the technological world.  Well, not really.  But his father owns a technology company that’s bigger than Google and Apple combined.  His mother works as a famous orthodontist for Orthodontists Without Borders and is often out of the country.  With a mostly absent mother, a work-obsessed father, […]



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