Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Real Fictional Comic about a Comic Artist (in middle school)

New Kid by Jerry Craft

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Bingo 8: Picture This Since the book club book I’m thinking I want to start with is part 2 of a series, I figured I’d get a hold of book one first. Somehow, I’d forgotten that New Kid was a graphic novel, so it fits in just fine for Bingo. Turns out the main character want to be a drawer of pictures, so it double works. I was a little unsure about this one before starting it because it was more of a middle grade […]

“He was wrong, somehow, and he wanted to be all right, but it was almost as if there was some secret nobody would tell him, so he was always going to be stuck outside.”

Sons from Afar (Tillerman Cycle #6) by Cynthia Voigt

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In book six of The Tillerman Cycle, we spend time with James, the Tillerman family’s deepest thinker, and in many respects, its most troubled family member. Sweet Maybeth, though clearly developmentally disabled, has her siblings to look out for her and though academically challenged, is a popular and beloved classmate. Both younger brother Sammy and older sister Dicey are unwilling to bend to social mores and remain fiercely independent despite the pressures of high school. Despite their gruff exteriors and nonchalance, friends seek them out. […]

“The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without colour, pain or past.”

The Giver by Lois Lowry

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Cannonball Read Bingo Square: Minds I have owned a copy of The Giver for quite a while and it has sat collecting dust on our bookshelf reserved for the classics. My kiddo, on a whim, picked it up and when my 13-year-old picks up something that is a classic, I generally take that as an opportunity to revisit it. (See also, failed attempt to get him to read “A Wrinkle in Time.”) When I picked it up to reread, I soon began to wonder if […]

A boy leaves home to prove himself and wisely brings his dog

Call It Courage by Armstrong Sperry

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CBR 13 Bingo: The Wilds I originally intended to do a “Lumberjanes” graphic novel for this square but can’t find it!  Instead I read Call It Courage, which was on my summer reading lists as a child but I never got around to reading.  My thirteen year old saw me and said that she had read it for school a few years ago, and that it has a great character arc.  Mafutu does go through transformation and growth but I’m not certain I would qualify […]

Lightning Round

Tonguebreaker by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Batman Earth One, Vol. 3 by Geoff Johns

Solomon's Vineyard by Jonathan Latimer

Antartica: Journeys to the South Pole by Walter Dean Myers

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

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A few reviews of shorter books that I read quickly over the weekend and didn’t have extra time to flesh out… Tonguebreaker ***** Coming to terms with a society that doesn’t want you based on your body…and creating your own space instead…has to be a challenging thing. Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha bares her soul to the world in this collection of poems and one-act plays. Her use of language to lecture gripped me and her exploration of what it means to live in this world, to […]

“I, Claudia Kincaid, want to be different when I go back. Like being a heroine is being different.”

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Koningsburg

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On a recent in person trip to the library (a luxury in these pandemic times) I scoured the kiddo section looking for things that might appeal to my 11 year old. He wasn’t present, so I was casting a wide net about what would pique his interest. (I average one winning selection for about every 5 mehs, so it’s a bit of a numbers game). My eyes landed on this book, and I was instantly transported back to my youth. I couldn’t have told you […]



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