Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Guess my house is named Priscilla

A Home Named Walter by Chelsea Lin Wallace

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Walter is a home. Or Walter was a home in A Home Named Walter. Well, he still is a home, just after his beloved family has moved out, he allowed himself to get rowdy, squeaky, rundown and dried up. One day a new child and her mother move in. Not only does the girl think this new situation feels “off” and “different,” so does Walter. He does not allow them to bake cookies in the oven, or he will slam the shutters closed. But with […]

Love, Me

Love, Z by Jessie Sima

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I am not completely familiar with the Robot Z, yet this book is familiar due to the theme. The simple question, “What is love?” is not as easy as Z would have hoped in Jessie Sima’s picture book Love, Z. But a wonderful journey later, Z finds that love might have been closer than they thought at first. A sweet, cozy story about family, friendship, and the real meaning of love. While this would have been a great Valentine’s Day book, it is also a […]

Bitter, Sweet, Love, Family

Hundred Years of Happiness by Thanhha Lai

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I had many emotions and thoughts while reading Hundred Years of Happiness. I was wondering the nationality of the family (you learn Vietnamese) as I was curious where the food came from and where the traditional represented (colors are important to cultures and I was wondering why white was not used).  Then, I would become emotional as I realized this is not really a happy story, but a bittersweet one about the love of a grandchild and grandparents. And where one grandparent, the grandmother, is […]

A cray-sea life

You Brought Me The Ocean by Alex Sanchez

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You Brought Me The Ocean. Seems simple enough of a title. The story that Alex Sanchez created is not as simple as that. This is a fun book about love and being true to yourself. Two characters quickly find love with each other, but their small community and local high school classmate will challenge that. Also, friends will come into question, what is family, and what are the markings on one of the young teen. Jake Hyde is drawn to the ocean, but his mother’s […]

Superheroes, family, friendship, and Aerialists. Oh My.

The Lost Carnival by Michael Moreci

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I have wanted to read The Lost Carnival for a while now. It was not because it was about Dick Grayson or DC Comics or about a (future) superhero. It was not because Michael Moreci wrote it, or Sas Milledge and Phil Hester illustrated. No, it was because I wanted to know why the character was upside down and in a flower on the cover. That was the draw. Okay, maybe superficial, but that crazy, busy, simple coloring of yellow, blue, and gray just called […]

Big Ideas and Big Friends

Big Dreams, Small Fish by Paula Cohen

Gibberish by Young Vo

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Culture is an interesting subject. And when you come from one and go to a different one, things get interesting.  The publisher Levine Querido has stories that are about cultures we may/may not be familiar with. In the process of reading them, there is a lot to learn about how we are not only different, but the same, too. Shirley is a child with big ideas, her family are immigrants, they live over their grocery store, and they cannot sell their gefilte fish. Her parents […]



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