Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

If Mr. Rogers was that quirky uncle, LeVar Burton was that cool older cousin

My Friend LeVar by Ezra Edmond

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I saw the title: My Friend LeVar. And I wondered, “Is this the LeVar?” The Mr. LeVar Burton who was one of the influential parts of my reading childhood? And yes, Ezra Edmond’s picture book (due in October 2024 and read via an online reader copy, and illustrated by Jenna Nahyun) was about that LeVar Burton. The story is unusual in the sense that it is not your usual action book. There is a lesson, but not the ones you usually get. The story is […]

How do you read?

101 Ways to Read a Book by Timothee de Fombelle

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The Sunflower, The contortionist, The sleepwalker, The romantic are all ways you can read a book. You can read one in the tub, or if you are The Octopus you can read many at a time. But Timothee de Fombelle decided to show you 101 ways in 101 Ways to Read a Book. Each page has one or two ways of reading. There are readers on bikes and readers on the floor (there are about 10 different ways to do that). And each one is […]

Take a look it is in a book (and it’s fun too)

The Spell of a Story by Mariajo Ilustrajo

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I just counted and if my count is right, this is not only my oddball review of 884 (I like “boxed numbers” or ending in zero or five; or all three being the same….sometimes), but also my SEVENTEENTH Cannonball. (I think I might have reviewed a few books this year. What do you think?) But regardless if this is my 884th or 4th, this book is something special. Which is interesting as The Spell of a Story did not immediately grab me when I first saw/found it. […]

Reading the city

City Under the City by Dan Yaccarino

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I think I have read City Under the City before. However, I did not really remember it at all. Sure, things seemed a smidgen familiar, but the theme is similar in other works and I always find samples here and there so that’s why a page or two wasn’t completely “fresh.”  And that is not necessarily a bad thing as I was able to read it fresh. And like with another book I read and this happened to me, I was able to take something […]

Lots of Good Stuff in these books

Colorful Mondays: A Bookmobile Spreads Hope in Honduras by Nelson Rodriguez

Fiona the Fruit Bat by Dan Riskin

What's Inside a Bird's Nest?: And Other Questions about Nature & Life Cycles by Rachel Ignotofsky

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I like books. You like books. The neighborhood in Tegucigalpa, Honduras likes books. And Luis likes books in Colorful Mondays: A Bookmobile Spreads Hope in Honduras. A lot. And he cannot wait for the bookmobile to come once a week. He cannot wait for the adventures he will find inside books. And he cannot wait for the happy feelings he gets by reading, then telling, the stories. Nelson Rodriguez, Leonardo Agustin Monetes, Rosana Faria, Carla Tabora, and Lawrence Schimel got together and wrote, illustrated and […]

But who reads to the monsters?

I Will Read to You by Gideon Sterer

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When the publisher’s review of the book starts off with “A gentle blend of spooky and sweet” you pretty much have said the majority of what you need to know about the book. However, you also could say that in I Will Read to You Gideon Sterer has a young boy who wonders who reads to the monsters of the world. He has his mom to read to him, but who do they have? When the mom says no one, because they are monsters, our […]



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