Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Columbian Mythology and Family Trauma

The Enchanted Life of Valentina Mejía by Alexandra Alessandri

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Valentina, her brother Julian, and her father are hiking the Columbian jungle to track down a vampire. Well, that’s what her father’s doing. Valentina is along for the ride, trying not to be embarrassed about her father and brother’s belief in Columbian folk creatures, and taking the opportunity to practice her drawing. But during the trip, Valentina has a visceral premonition: “The earth is not happy.” She urges her family to leave, but they are caught in a violent earthquake. The kids and their dad […]

From a Hawk Tuah Boy Again

The Change by K. A. Applegate

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How many Hawk Tuah jokes do I get to make for this reading challenge? Anyway, Book 13 of the Animorphs is narrated by Tobias, our boy who accidentally stayed in his hawk morph too long, and is now permanently stuck in a hawk’s body. It has its ups and downs, and lately he’s really been missing his human form, and feeling like he is a useless member of the Animorphs because he can’t morph. He meets a pair of Hork-Bajir, dinosaur-like aliens who make up […]

Animorphs #12 Predicts The Substance?!

The Forgotten by K. A. Applegate

The Reaction by K. A. Applegate

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OK I’m not gonna bury the lede here: Rachel gives birth to a crocodile through her back. But how did we get there? Animorphs book 11, The Forgotten, would have been a cool little book if it had any point in existing in the first place. Now, I am still only 1/6th of the way through this series, so perhaps its relevance is yet to reveal itself. But plotwise, the Animorphs basically get caught in a time-travel oopsie-daisie when the Yeerks shoot their big laser […]

Dogs are purest good boys, even in Animorphs

Megamorphs #1: The Andalite’s Gift by K. A. Applegate

The Alien by K. A. Applegate

The Secret by K. A. Applegate

The Android by K. A. Applegate

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Oops, I forgot to review my books! I am still chugging along in The Animorphs series! I fell off of it briefly but am catching back up. I was going to skip some volumes, but it turns out my brain is too COMPLETEST for that, so at this point I’ve read the first ten books, plus the first Megamorphs volume. Megamorphs #1: The Andalite’s Gift: Megamorphs is sort of the “super specials” of the series (shoutout to my BSC babes). Those are an ensemble narrative, […]

An Important Middle Grade in Verse

Please Pay Attention by Jamie Sumner

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Gosh, Please Pay Attention is a book that hurts in the best way. Bea is a sixth-grader with cerebral palsy who is Buddies with Josie, a kindergartner with anxiety, and best friends with Rani. Max is the school nurse, and also her foster mom who gave her her name because Bea’s neonatal room was decorated with Peter Rabbit before Max brought her home. Bea loves to draw and even gets in trouble for drawing places she shouldn’t, like her bedroom wall and classroom desk. But […]

A Cozy Middle Grade Book

Kiki's Delivery Service by Eiko Kadono

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I was looking for a cozy book after finishing the first two books in the Farseer trilogy, and this is just what I needed. Translated from Japanese, it follows 13-year-old witch Kiki. The tradition in her world is for witches to travel to a new town that does not already have a witch at some point after turning 13 and establish a life there, and they can’t go home for a year. Kiki’s magical ability is that she can fly on a broom. She lands […]



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