Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Coffee, unicorns and music

Shy Steve by Katerina Spaeth

Giddy Up, Unicorn! by Dani Gomez

Eloísa's Musical Window by Margarita Engle

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Picture books all around me. How many can I read? Well, I try to read all of them, but of course, it’s impossible. So, I do the best I humanly can to make sure I find the right one(s) for me. Then, I narrow it down to the ones I want to review. That is not as easy as it sounds. But I was able to find a few for this review. All were read via online reader copies. We can start with Shy Steve […]

An umbrella of sadness

Under Anna's Umbrella by Amanda Driscoll

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Under Anna’s Umbrella written by Amanda Driscoll and illustrated by Luisa Uribe (and due mid/late April 2025) is actually a nice story about grief. It is set up to allow you to adapt it to your own personal needs. We see how Anna is unable to face the death of someone in her family (I am assuming a father as there isn’t one during the course of the book, but there is a photograph of a man at the end of the book) but as […]

Leaping and leaping!

We Leap Together by Christopher Silas Neal

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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, picture books are great for that “I need to read but I don’t want something too long or heavy. And I can still say, “I read a book!” feeling. We Leap Together by Christopher Silas Neal (due April 2025; read via an online reader copy) is one of those quickies. It is about how the whales and humans are a lot alike when it comes to many things, but mostly caring for a young one.  I […]

Celebrating and loss

Popi's All Souls Song by C.K. Malone

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Popi’s All Souls Song by C.K. Malone and illustrated by Shelly Swann is due mid September 2024. I was able to find an online reader copy and I am curious about the final product. I think reading online made me “miss” some important pieces of the story. There is a small bump near the end that did not flow for me. However, overall it is an interesting story that takes a familiar topic (the death of a loved one) and handles it with love, care […]

Family celebration

A Turkish Rosh Hashanah by Etan Basseri

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I was reading A Turkish Rosh Hashanah (via an online reader copy though it has recently been released) by Etan Basseri and thought about The Light Keeper by Levin, Baslaw and Priestley. It is not because they have a similar theme, setting (one is set in Russian, one in Turkey), or even that the main characters are all Jewish, but it just had that feel of something familiar and yet, also different. It was sweet, interesting and a bit educational without being textbook-like. They both […]

Let there be light and community 

The Light Keeper by Sheila Baslaw

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Recently an email pops into my work emails and it says that I have been chosen to read a book in an online reader format. Fantastic! When did I enter/ask for this book?  I could not remember even seeing The Light Keeper by Sheila Baslaw, Karen Levine, and Alice Priestley before. But that would work in my favor as I had no preconceived notions about things.  While I have read the theme of the story before (the idea of being brave), it was new and […]



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