Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A Bear Would Also Have Worked Here

East of the Sun & West of the Moon by Mercer Mayer

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East of the Sun & West of the Moon is a retelling of a Norwegian fairy-tale, slightly in the vain of a combination of The Frog Prince and the Psyche/Eros myth. It tells the tale of a farmer’s daughter whose father marries her off to a bear, a fact she isn’t very happy about. Her husband tells her that he will only come to bed after dark, and she is never to light a candle so as to gaze upon him. Quickly breaking that, she […]

Twas the Night

The Night Before Christmas by by Clement Moore, illustrated by Gyo Fujikawa

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What can one say about The Night Before Christmas? We all (or most of us), know the story about Saint Nick’s visit to a house on Christmas Eve, and the narrator’s observations of the visit. The Muppets even did a rendition of it (the fact that A Muppet Family Christmas is pretty much only available on Youtube is still a largest travesty standing in the way of my Holiday Movie enjoyment). This one stands out though because of the art. This was one of my […]

The Rough-Face Girl Had Faith In Herself and She Had Courage

The Rough-Face Girl by Rafe Martin & David Shannon

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In this Algonquin rendition of Cinderella, The Rough-Face Girl lives with her father and two beautiful yet cruel sisters in a village on the shores of Lake Ontario. On the outskirts of the village lives the Invisible Being; a rich, powerful, and supposedly very handsome man who every woman in the village has set her sights on. However, to win his hand the women have to get past his sister and the tests she places in their paths. When her stepsisters fail, can the Rough-Face […]

Princess and the Amazing Technicolor Fur Coat

Princess Furball by Charlotte Huck & Anita Lovel

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The story is, according to the author’s inscription, “one of the many variants of the Cinderella story; readers will recognize it as being similar to the English ‘Catskin’ and to the Grimms’ ‘Many Furs’ or ‘Thousand Furs. The title princess (who is actually nameless) grows up without a mother but with a serious indifferent father. Her only comfort is her nanny, who teaches her writing, reading, dancing, and cooking; a standard gamut of royal tutorage except for the cooking. But when her nanny dies, her […]

I might have known it’d be fudge

Dorrie and the Wizard’s Spell by Patricia Coombs

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Dorrie, the little witch with her constantly bent hat and her mismatched socks and her cat Gink, lives with her mother Big Witch and Cook in their Victorian house. One day they go to the Bazaar to sell Big Witch’s odds and ends and potions and balms. While there, Big Witch disappears right from under Dorrie’s nose. She’s apparently been turned into a teacup, and unless Dorrie can get Wink the Wizard to reverse it, she’s going to have a teacup for a mother for […]

Behaving like a princess is work. It’s not just about looking beautiful or wearing a crown. It’s more about how you are inside

The Paper Bag Princess by Story by Robert Munsch, Art by Michael Martchenko

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I absolutely loved this book growing up, and I make sure to look at it again at least once a year. The art alone would have me coming back, never mind the ending. The book starts out with the title Princess Elizabeth and her Prince Ronald, dressed in their best gown and hybrid tennis/medieval ensemble respectively. Which is when the dragon bursts onto the scene, kidnapping the prince and burning everything the princess has, including the clothing on her back. (I do have to give […]



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