Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

They had grown fast.

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

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This is the most recent Jacqueline Woodson novel, and like her other recent novel Another Brooklyn, this is a novel for adults. Like that novel, this is also a short, smallish novel that jumps from consciousness to conscious among a few different characters and time periods in the same family. We meet a young couple having a child together in their teens, and as the baby is coming, they are drifting apart. These changes in their life prove to be too much and they can’t stay […]

He didn’t know anything back then.

If You come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson

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Jacqueline Woodson starts this book off with an introduction explaining that she wanted to write an updated version of Romeo and Juliet. So knowing that, and without giving anything specific away, be forewarned about that. This is a wonderful exploration of teenage feelings, teenage tenderness, and like Eleanor and Park, is and isn’t a retelling of Romeo and Juliet. Both are a retelling in a way, without getting too much into the forces keeping them apart (at least keeping families at bay). But that doesn’t […]

This Must Be the Place

Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson

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Another Brooklyn is not a very long book, and I read it in a single sitting. Even as I was reading it I was looking forward to the next time I get to read it. It’s the story of August, who moves to Brooklyn in the 70s with her father and brother after her mother dies. She meets and befriends three other girls: Gigi, Sylvia, and Angela. The book starts with August’s return to Brooklyn as an adult when her father dies, where she runs […]

I always thought I’d get farther. I’d like to blame the world for what I’ve failed to do

The Woman Upstairs; Family Matters; The Library Book; The Blank Wall; The Summer before the Dark; Those Who Knew; Ways of Disappearing; White Fragility; Call them by their True Name; Harbor Me by Claire Messud; Rohinton Mistry; Susan Orlean; Elisabeth Sanxay Holding; Doris Lessing; Idra Novey; Robin Diangelo; Rebecca Solnit; Jacqueline Woodson

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The Woman Upstairs – 2/5 Stars I found this book because of a list listing “Famous angry women in books” or something. And it’s true that the lead character and narrator of this book is very angry. I was hoping she’d be angrier and less articulate about her anger in this book. What’s this book about? It’s about a woman in her early 40s who was an artist who is also an elementary school teacher. She becomes friends with the mom of one her students. […]

The Day You Begin

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Jacqueline Woodson and Rafael Lopez combine their talents in The Day You Begin. The story is how a classroom of children feel like outsiders in their classroom. Told through poetic text, Woodson shows how these two children learn they are not alone. We have all probably felt like Rigoberto and Angelina at least once in our lives. Due to our names, accent, being the new kid at school, at church or another event. Perhaps we are not good at a particular sport or subject or […]

This is a beautiful gem of a book

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I don’t actually read poetry that comfortably. I mean this specifically that I don’t read books of poetry that comfortably. I tend to want to finish books and that leads me to moving through poetry too quickly. And so I often avoid collections, and since I teach high school English, I figure I get a decent amount of poetry in my life as a matter of course. Luckily for me, I listened to the audiobook version of this book read by the author and so […]



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