Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Time for picture book reviewing again!

Tomatoes for Neela by Padma Lakshmi

Tilda Tries Again by Tom Percival

Pout-Pout Fish: Passover Treasure by Deborah Diesen

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I am hungry. (Of course, that is like saying, it is Tuesday on Tuesday.) And a fun snack is cherry or grape tomatoes for me. Therefore, when I saw the word tomatoes in the title of this picture book, I was intrigued. In Tomatoes for Neela, Neela and her mother cook dishes and show how tomatoes play a role in foods of a culture. This task also shows how culture brings families together, even if one member (say, a beloved grandmother) is far away living […]

A special book with a Special message

Beautifully Me by Nabela Noor

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When I first saw Beautifully Me advertised, I thought it was either going to be a good and positive addition to the “I love Me” genre, or be terribly preachy, cliched and pushy. However, Nabela Noor made a book that, while I am not feeling OMG BEST EVER about it, I am on the this is a good addition to the I Love Me/Body Positive genre. Zubi is a Bangladeshi girl who is not your stereotypical “slim and trim pretty girl.” However, she sees nothing […]

Don’t even need to have pants to read this

Amah Faraway by Margaret Chiu Greanias

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Are you close to your grandparents? Physically or spiritually? I was physically close to both sets of grandparents (one lived in the upper part of the house, the other about 20-30 minutes’ drive).  Therefore, when kids would say, “I’m going to New Jersey for Christmas.” I was, “Huh? You mean you don’t put on a pair of pants and slippers and go upstairs?” After all, it was a big deal if we went to the other grandparent’s house (the drive) I mean we had to […]

“And it wasn’t fair. That was the thing that was at the heart of my reluctance and my resentment. Some people make it out of their stories unscathed, thriving. Some people don’t.”

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

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In one word: Grieving Cannonball Read Bingo: Uncannon I picked this for uncannon because Gyasi is giving new life to a story that we’ve seen many times over from the Eurocentric white perspective. There have been plenty of books about drug addiction (even specifically about Oxycontin and the havoc it is wreaking in America), mental illness, the crossroads of science and religion in academia, and an overachieving character trying to fix her heart by using her head. She is taking very familiar tropes and given […]

Two Touching Stories

Typewriter by Yevgenia Nayberg

No Ordinary Jacket by Sue-Ellen Pashley

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Once upon a time a typewriter proudly typed for its Russian author. It had the Cyrillic keyboard, that tapped out story after story. But when the author comes to America, the typewriter is used less. That is, until a new owner finds it and has it ring out again. Typewriter by Yevgenia Nayberg, is a different story. Typewriter is, as advertised, about a typewriter. While we tend not to see something like this today, the book is set in a contemporary setting. There is some […]

A tough read about tough topics…but oh so lovely.

This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

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“In each picture, Claude seemed to be shrinking. He had a big family, yes, so it was hard to fit everyone on the page, and he was the littlest of them, true, but Claude got smaller and smaller.” Penn and Rosie always wanted a daughter. But as life would have it—they had five sons. But one night their youngest, Claude informs them that he’d like to be a little girl when he grows up. While their son is advanced, particularly in his vocabulary, they still […]



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