Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I didn’t do justice to these books, so ignore my review and just get copies of the books!

Growing Up under a Red Flag: A Memoir of Surviving the Chinese Cultural Revolution by Ying Chang Compestine

My Name Is Long as a River by Suma Subramaniam

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I had the reading bug the other day, and found two books that are different, but important to know about. Both were read via online reader copies, and are future publications. I did have some trouble writing a review for them, as I wanted to do the subjects justice. I hope you, come Spring, pick up copies and enjoy, too. Growing Up under a Red Flag: A Memoir of Surviving the Chinese Cultural Revolution by Ying Chang Compestine is an eye opening look at the […]

Talking wordy to you

Maddie and Mabel by Kari Allen

The Magical Clay Doll : A Legend Retold in English and Chinese by Ning Sun

Maribel’s Year by Michelle Sterling

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Picture book round-up with a family and friendship theme attached to them! All titles are currently available but were read via an online reader copy. I like how the publisher copy of Maddie and Mabel by Kari Allen describes our young sisters, “two spunky sisters who navigate their relationship with humor and heart.” There is heart, some humor and a lot of spunk, but not everything is for everyone. The dynamic between the siblings is old fashioned, but is not dated. If you have a […]

Does *not* do what it says on the tin. Where be the witches?

In Defense of Witches: The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial by Mona Chollet

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30 Books in 30 Days, Vol. 3 Book 11/30 This one was frustrating! The title absolutely is misleading. The only witches you will get in this book are in the introduction, and in Carmen Maria Machado’s foreword. So if you find yourself digging those two parts just brace yourself that’s not what the rest of the book is like. To be fair, for the most part I found the rest of the book interesting and never wanted to stop reading it, but I came for […]

Food, Family, Fun

The Blue Bowl by Flo Leung

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The year 2024 is shaping up to have several interesting looking books, and picture books in particular. March 2024 will be giving us a story of how a young boy, Max, loves his family and their culture, but who also likes other things too within the pages of The Blue Bowl.   We see how Max and his family celebrate, how this family comes together in one large group of fun, and when the special blue bowls come out, he knows it is a very special […]

What Are We?

Culture: The Story of Us by Martin Puchner

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This was another library impulse grab in my mission to read more non-fiction and I’m glad I made it through! Using key moments and figures, Martin Puchner lays out a brief sketch of human culture over the millennia. Which, you know, huge task! He focuses on times of cultural exchange, whether willing or not, and how we are constantly borrowing, assimilating, and rediscovering who we are. The examples he chooses are diverse and not just the frogmarch of Western Civ that would have us believe […]

The night parade is about to begin . . .

Tokyo Night Parade by J. P. Takahashi

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I am not really sure how I feel about the picture book, Tokyo Night Parade. After read I noticed there were several layers and the art needed its own reading. Taken on the surface, it is a sweet story about a young girl who wants to spend time with old friends from Japan, ones she has not seen since moving to New York. These friends are a bit different though, as they are the demons of Japanese folklore. And our young hero cannot see them […]



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