Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Buck some stereotypes and be you

My Guncle and Me by Jonathan Merritt

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I saw the title on my online reader list (though it is available), My Guncle and Me. Okay, (I thought) another gay uncle story. Cool. There are a few for kids, usually the uncle is pretty flamboyant, and that’s the moral of the story (it’s okay to be you), but let’s see if this is different. And, it is. Yes, the uncle is still flamboyant (not “as flamboyant” as say the drag queen uncle in the book, Auntie Uncle: Drag Queen Hero by Ellie Royce […]

I’m not cold, just my habitat

Cold by Tim McCanna

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Cold is different for everyone. Poetry is different for everyone. And in Tim McCanna’s picture book, Cold, we get a lovely, lush illustrated book that has a story within the art as well as complimenting the text that deals with both subjects. The poetry is how the rhyming text with each page gives us a short burst of poetic information about how in cold there is life and how the cold itself is a character that moves about, leading us to the different places the […]

Spicy pancake celebrations

Gingerbread Dreidels by Jane Breskin Zalben

Attack of the Scones (Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast by Josh Funk

Spicy Spicy Hot! by Lenny Wen

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Who doesn’t love food? I mean most people at least like it or have at least one thing they like. And if you know me, I like books as well as food. So when I can combine the two likes it is always fun.  I will start with Gingerbread Dreidels by Jane Breskin Zalben with illustrations by Thai Phuong. Due late August 2024 (read via an online reader copy), this picture book shows how we can have a lot of celebrations in our lives, and […]

Sending kindness

Share Your Love by Susan B. Katz

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Susan B. Katz might want you to Share Your Love, but I wish they had not done it in rhyming text. However, since I am not the technical audience for the book (which I would say would be a four- to eight-year-old), that is okay. It will work for that younger crowd. This makes things fun, light, and bouncy. This is a “kindness meditation” (as the publisher description says) but since I am not a fan of the word mediation (has too many connotations of […]

A friendship book made by friends, for friends

I Don’t Care by Julie Fogliano,

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I Don’t Care is a clever book. This is not just because of the text of Julie Fogliano, but how it came to be. The illustrators, Molly Idle and Juana Martinez-Neal are best friends, and they knew they had to do the art together. An afterwards (a small section at the end that you should read as well) shows how Molly thought since they lived 20 minutes from each other, easy peasy, right? Well, then Juana moved to Connecticut and the back and forth in […]

Two books about friends are better than one book about friends

Will You Be My Friend? by Sam McBratney

The Bear and the Moon by Matthew Burgess

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A few weeks ago, I read that Sam McBratney had passed on September 18, 2020. When I told a coworker of mine, she said, “2020 really does suck.” But at least we still have his and Anita Jeram’s last book together, Will You Be My Friend? While an adorable book, it is not “up to” the prequel, Guess How Much I Love You. That book was one in a million. It had not been really seen before. The parent is a dad bunny. The idea […]



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