Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“In the name of all who can no longer speak, I send you love.” Kati Preston

Hidden: A True Story of the Holocaust, by Kati Preston

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The memoir/biography of Kati Preston, Hidden: A True Story of the Holocaust, is one of the most beautiful, and ugliest, pieces of literature I have read this year. The story, through the child eyes of Preston, is pure and honest, yet because it is adult Preston writing the actual story, there is some of that maturity included. The ugly of the war and things done is told in the words a child understands, slightly “sugar coating” it (they say the Russian soldiers are “hurting the […]

Diversity

What Rosa Brought by Jacob Sager Weinstein

Come and Join Us!: 18 Holidays Celebrated All Year Long by Liz Kleinrock

Once Upon a Sari by Zenia Wadhwani

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Recently I posted on my Facebook page a couple images from books I was promoting that day. One was a book I had posted here before, The Night Before Eid: A Muslim Family Story, by Aya Khalil and the other What Rosa Brought by Jacob Sager Weinstein. Considering current events, I wanted to promote love, positivity and acceptance.  And I cannot think of two better books to show this. Except maybe Once Upon a Sari by Zenia Wadhwani. Or Come and Join Us! 18 Holidays […]

Never Forget

Maus A Survivor’s Tale Vol. I: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman

Maus A Survivor’s Tale Vol II: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman

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Cbr15bingo history Maus is a highly acclaimed Pulitzer Prize winning (1992) 2-volume graphic novel that made the news last year as the subject of a book banning in Tennessee (for bad words and a naked female mouse. Really.) Maus is about the Holocaust. Writer/illustrator Art Spiegelman interviewed his own father about what happened to him and their family in Poland during WWII. The Spiegelman family, like so many other Jewish families, was practically wiped out due to Nazi Germany’s extermination camps. In writing about this, […]

A good reminder that the “banality of evil” led to real harm

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

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I’m suspicious and wonder if maybe I read a version of this book that didn’t include the second half? I really, genuinely don’t recall reading about logotherapy—just reading about Frankl’s experiences in the Nazi concentration camp system. I will write my review from that perspective, because it certainly seems like the second part of this book lost a few readers. I’m of that schooling system that emphasized the Great Wars and All The Horror Therein quite a bit. American exceptionalism was ne’er to be found, […]

Finding family

On the Move: Home Is Where You Find It by Michael Rosen

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A rating of 3 makes this seem like it On the Move: Home Is Where You Find It is not a good book/collection. However, this rating is because of the images of Quentin Blake, which I am not a fan of. However, they are perfect for the atmosphere of the writing (raw, desolate, almost hopeless) and since t there are no half points, this is a 3.5 lower 4. The idea of migration, refugees, immigrants, all come together while we follow Michael Rosen finding out about […]

Write and remember

Daughters of the Occupation: A Novel of WWII by Shelly Sanders

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Daughters of the Occupation, published this year, is “inspired by true events” and a real gut-punching piece of historical fiction. Author Shelly Sanders discovered some truths about her family’s past as Jews in Riga when both Soviets and Nazis overran the country and persecuted them. She used this information as a springboard to write a novel about Miriam and Sarah, a grandmother and granddaughter who embark on harrowing journeys in very different time periods to find their family members and preserve their history. Chapters alternate […]



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