Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

When the sun leaves, they bow their heads in mourning

The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur

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After two books dealing with some weightier themes, I needed a breather, and so I picked this book of poetry. It wasn’t getting any use from my fiancee, who’s the one who wanted it in the first place. I know positively nothing about poetry, but I guess Rupi Kaur is a big name in modern poetry. Reading this, I immediately understood why. The Sun and Her Flowers is raw, alternating between beautiful and heartbreaking. Not quite the light and airy breather I was after, yet […]

Poetry that’s actually readable. Read it.

Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman

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I suspect like most of the world, I learned who Amanda Gorman was within hours of Joe Biden’s inauguration. Turns out her collection Call us What We Carry is every bit as good as “The Hill We Climb” which is included as the final poem in the book. I should be up front, I don’t typically read poetry for fun, in part because I work with it so much professionally. Gorman’s book though is an exception, even more so in that it wasn’t a struggle […]

Not to my taste.

Earth Keeper: Reflections on the American Land by N. Scott Momaday

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I think Momaday is just not an author for me. I felt similarly ‘meh’ about his Pulitzer prize winning novel, House Made of Dawn, when I read it in graduate school. His stuff just does not resonate with me. This is a book of prose poems centered on Momaday’s contemplation of the natural world, and in specific the American West, where he has lived his entire life. It’s a small book, focused on Momaday’s own feelings toward the earth, and eventually, humanity’s. No surprise, the central […]

“…loving Blackness enough to see its assets so that dark children matter.” Dr. Bettina L. Love

Hair Story by NoNieqa Ramos

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I’m having a hard time explaining just how much I loved this book, but I’m going to do my best. First off, Hair Story is own voices written & illustrated, and both the author, NoNieqa Ramos, and the illustrator, Keisha Morris, include their own hair stories at the back of the book, which was a lovely surprise.     Second, do you see these illustrations? The texture and colors and patterns and perfection of them?  You can see the love in that grandmother’s face, the joy in […]

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 […]

A thoughtful mix of poetry and fairy tales

The Seventh Raven by David Elliott

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The Seven Ravens is a cool fairy tale. It’s very similar to The Six Swans – both are categorized as “brothers who turn into birds” folktales. But I prefer The Seven Ravens. It focuses on a peasant family instead of a princess.  The parents are lovely people – no evil stepmothers or greedy fathers here.  A brave girl saves the day. And ravens are cooler than swans. Sorry, swans. If you don’t know the folktale, it is the story of a peasant couple who have […]



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