Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Child me would have LOVED this book, adult me thinks it’s pretty great: CBR Bingo – Birthday

Matilda by Roald Dahl

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When looking for which authors have a birthday to fit the bingo requirements, I discovered that Roald Dahl’s birthday is September 13th.  I’ve previously read a few other books by Dahl but had never read Matilda, so this seemed like a good time. When first published in 1988, I would have been eight years old and it would have been perfect for me to discover in about another two years.  However, it escaped notice and when the movie came out in 1996, I was entering my […]

If Your Nerdiest English Professor Wrote A Cookbook

MLA Members Cook by Modern Language Association

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There are two ways to think about this: what’s the nerdiest thing you can think of OR what’s the most in-jokey vanity project you can think of? Either way, the answer is MLA Members Cook!  This is a cookbook supposedly created by collecting recipes from members of the MLA; yes that MLA, as in the formatting and citation style your English teachers and professors made you use. I said ‘supposedly’ created  because based on what this supposed book is presented as, a cookbook by members […]

The book that made me like my name

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Matilda is a unique child. By the time she is three she has taught herself to read by studying newspapers around the house. Every day when her mom leaves for bingo Matilda walks to the library and reads anything in sight. Her parents are neglectful and abusive, but Matilda gets revenge by thinking up clever pranks involving super glue or ghosts and parrots. When she starts school her intelligence is immediately recognized which is how she gets to know Miss Honey, but also how she […]

Roald Dahl wrote some weird stuff

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James and the Giant Peach I think I forgot how nasty Roald Dahl could be to his characters.  Poor James is orphaned at the age of four because his parents are killed and eaten by an angry rhinoceros, which is especially tragic considering rhinos are herbivores.  James is sent to live with his horrible aunts, because we need horrible abusive adults in our story. Then there is a crazy old man, who is completely off his rocker. The old man gives James a bag of […]

James and the giant meh

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James used to be a happy boy who loved to play until one day he has to go live with his two Aunts who hate him and make him work way too hard. He never gets to play anymore! One day a mysterious man hands him a bag of magic seeds and tells him that they can make all his wishes come true. James runs home to try it, but oh no! He trips and spills the seeds on the ground. Behold next day there […]

The Play’s the Thing

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The edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Play a Play I read is no longer in print. Hopefully this new edition is just a new cover and has not changed the work of Richard R. George . Roald Dahl introduces the play with a short introduction of how it was sent to him. The end of the play has staging, lighting and other ideas of how you can perform this version yourself. The middle is the play. It follows the movie closely in areas […]



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