Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Child me would have LOVED this book, adult me thinks it’s pretty great: CBR Bingo – Birthday

Matilda by Roald Dahl

by Leave a Comment

When looking for which authors have a birthday to fit the bingo requirements, I discovered that Roald Dahl’s birthday is September 13th.  I’ve previously read a few other books by Dahl but had never read Matilda, so this seemed like a good time. When first published in 1988, I would have been eight years old and it would have been perfect for me to discover in about another two years.  However, it escaped notice and when the movie came out in 1996, I was entering my […]

“But what do I know? I’ve only been around 4.5 billion years or so.”

AstroNuts Mission One: the Plant Planet by Jon Scieszka, Steven Weinberg

by Leave a Comment

cbr11bingo – Birthday! Earth is now on the brink of being inhabitable, and she’s got no bones to pick about telling us why. Luckily, as she reveals to us in her narration of AstroNuts, NNASA (Not the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has been planning for just such an event, secretly creating four super-space soldier animal hybrids in their secret laboratory under Mount Rushmore. Blasting off in Thomas Jefferson’s Nose Rocket, AstroWolf, LaserShark, SmartHawk, and StinkBug launch their mission of finding an unoccupied Earth-like planet […]

Everyone has felt like Moon Girl at one time or other – #CBR11Bingo: “And so it begins”

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur: The Beginning by Brandon Montclare (writer), Amy Reeder (writer), Natacha Bustos (artist), Marco Failla (artist)

by 1 Comment

For a couple years now, people have been telling me to read Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.  I even bought it for my daughters, they read it and loved it, but it sat on the shelf unread by me.  Then an adorable video of a parent and child cosplaying, with a preschool aged Moon Girl and a parent in a blow up dinosaur costume, was posted on the Cannonball Read Book Chat Facebook page by emmalita.  It was adorable and gave me the push to […]

The lies that bind us

The Girl Who Drank The Moon by Kelly Barnhill

by 1 Comment

Though The Girl Who Drank The Moon is apparently for youngsters, there’s a lot in here that olds will love too. On the edge of a forest, villagers leave a baby each year as an offering to the witch they’ve grown up terrified of. As far as they’re concerned, by giving up the baby’s life, they’ll be safeguarding their own for another year. Meanwhile, the perplexed witch hurries to collect the abandoned babies, nourishing them with starlight until she can find them loving families on […]

If you’re not following this gal on Twitter do so now!

Dandy by Ame Dyckman

by Leave a Comment

The interesting part of the book Dandy is, while it has Ame Dyckman’s signature style all over it, at the same time it does not feel like her other books. That, I think, is due to Charles Santos’s illustrations. They “tame down” her quirkiness. The main part of the story is a “daddy/daughter” story. This modern take on how a little girl makes a dandelion her beloved best friend, will have most people cheering on her imagination.  However, I’m with the original feeling of Daddy […]

Don’t hide your light under a bushel, darling.

Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus by Dusti Bowling

by Leave a Comment

(Title quote is from Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage) Aven Green has a pretty great life as a middle schooler in Kansas.  She plays on the soccer team, has a wonderful group of friends, is a creative writer, and plays the guitar. She also has no arms. She was born without them, though if anyone asks about it (and boy do they), she always has a wild tale to tell them about where they went and how. But her life is about to be upended: her […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo