Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

She wanted to be a Doctor but became a Lawyer and changed a few things along the way.

Fall Down Seven Times, Stand Up Eight: Patsy Takemoto Mink and the Fight for Title IX by Jen Bryant

by Leave a Comment

Did you know that Title IX was not just for athletes? It started out as not forty words that said that women had to be treated equally in all matters: education, and sports alike. Of course, that was only one thing Patsy Takemoto (later Patsy Mink) would do in her life. A young Patsy lived in Maui. She knew her family had come to this country for a better life and that meant (though she was not sure at the time) an education. At four-years-old […]

And here I always wanted a snow day

When the Schools Shut Down : A Young Girl's Story of Virginia's "Lost Generation" and the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Decision by Yolanda Gladden

by Leave a Comment

While When the Schools Shut Down : A Young Girl’s Story of Virginia’s “Lost Generation” and the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Decision is a slightly romantic telling of the several years after Brown v. Board of Education when one community went out of their way to make sure their black citizen did not get an education, this book is still strongly showing how much people want to learn, and how far they are willing to go to get what they want. After the decision […]

You’ll be smarter than a cookie

The Smart Cookie (Food Group) by Jory John

by Leave a Comment

The Smart Cookie (Food Group) by Jory John is not my favorite of the Food Books they and Pete Oswald created. With that said, there is nothing wrong with this picture book, I just feel that like, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie series, we have gone to the bakery one too many times. Yet, the story of being yourself, and finding your own way of being creative or clever, is nicely illustrated by Oswald’s fun, silly, colorful, detailed illustrations. The cover tells you […]

One sweater and 26 alligators

Soomi’s Sweater by Susie Oh

Doris' Dear Delinquents by Emma Ward

by Leave a Comment

The two books that were silver winners of the 2020 Colors Award was Soomi’s Sweater and Doris’ Dear Delinquents. These two Clavis Publishing titles I enjoyed more than the winner. Even though I understand the win, I decided that I was looking for something lighter, that was more fun and yet, still has a strong story and “pop” to it. Soomi’s Sweater by Susie Oh  I adore the illustrations! They are sweet, simple (not simplistic) and colorful. The blue/green and yellows pop off the page. […]

“He breathed in my face the coffee he’d just drunk, mingled with the odor of his gums.”

A Girl Returned by Donatella Di Pietrantonio

by Leave a Comment

1970s Naples: a thirteen year old girl of privilege is suddenly removed from her seaside home and returned to a cramped and dirty apartment outside the city.  The key word here is “returned”; our heroine has been sent “home” to a place that she never knew. She spent her entire life living with her glamorous mother and policeman father, only to have that reality shattered in one afternoon when the man she knew as her father bundles her and all of her belongings into the […]

In which A Square contemplates the universe

Flatland by Edwin Abbott

by Leave a Comment

Flatland is broken up into two parts. In the first A Square explains to the reader his universe which is called Flatland, a two dimensional world. There are only two dimensions in Flatland: one that runs North to South and one that run West to East. All women are Lines and there is a separate caste system based around the number of sides one has. In such system, the lowest caste are isosceles triangles, for how can one be worthy of respect if they are […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo