Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The story of a child refugee

Mud City by Deborah Ellis

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Cbr12bingo Yellow Mud City, the third novel in Ellis’ The Breadwinner series, is the story of Shauzia, the best friend of The Breadwinner’s main character Parvana. In book 1, readers learned that Shauzia, like Parvana, was pretending to be a boy in Taliban-controlled Kabul so that she could work and earn money to support her family at home. Women and girls were denied education and independence and to break the rules was to invite severe punishment, even death. While we don’t learn a lot about […]

“Tanks were normal. Bombs were normal. Why couldn’t eating be normal?”

Parvana’s Journey by Deborah Ellis

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CBR12bingo Green Parvana’s Journey is the second book in Ellis’ The Breadwinner series and picks up shortly after Parvana and her father have left Kabul, Afghanistan, circa 2000, in search of the rest of their family. Ellis continues to focus on matters of war and violence from the perspective of Afghanistan’s refugee children. Like The Breadwinner, this is a short YA novel, appropriate for children age 10 or so and older. It shows the horrors of war and family separation through the eyes of Parvana […]

Fresh Start and Fresh View on War in Afghanistan

The Breadwinner: A Novel by Deborah Ellis

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Cbr12bingo Fresh Start Published in 2000, The Breadwinner is the first book in a four-part YA series that looks at events in Afghanistan from the point of view of an eleven-year-old girl named Parvana. This young adult series introduces readers to the war-filled history of a country that had once been more open and free but has come under the control of the Taliban. The Breadwinner has been made into an animated film and graphic novel, which I read a few Cannonballs ago. I can […]

We are just specks of dust in this world, glimmering for a moment in the sunlight and then disappearing into nothing. You have to learn to take your peace with that.

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line: A Novel by Deepa Anappara

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Cbr12bingo Violet (this is also a debut novel if you are looking for one) Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is a sort of detective novel told from the point of view of a nine year old boy who dreams of solving the mystery of the missing children from his “basti” (neighborhood, or in this case slum) in a major city in India. Author Deepa Anappara was inspired to write this story after spending time as a journalist interviewing children in the slums of Delhi […]

Time to catch up on some history I never learned

Nat Turner by Kyle Baker

The Harlem Hellfighters by Max Brooks and Canaan White

Muhammad Ali by Sybille Titeux and Amazing Ameziane

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cbr12bingo Pandemic If you want to catch up a bit on the history you weren’t taught in school, these three graphic novels are a great way to do so. Nat Turner gives detail and perspective on the 1831 slave rebellion that was probably mentioned in a textbook but only covered in passing. The Harlem Hellfighters reveals not only the bravery and heroism of the all-Black 369th regiment fighting in WWI Europe, but also the racism and violence they faced from their fellow Americans. Muhammad Ali […]

Ghost Story

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The author’s note to National Book Award nominated YA novel Thirteen Doorways states that  “… it is … a story about girls. Girls with ambitions, brains, desires, talents, hungers. It is a story about how the world like to punish girls for their appetites, even for their love.” Inspired by the author’s mother-in-law’s real life experience in a Chicago orphanage in the 1940s, Thirteen Doorways is the story of Francesca (Frankie), a teen who along with her older brother and younger sister has been left […]



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