Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

We agree to disagree (Bingo Blackout!)

Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell and Faith Erin Hicks

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#CBR11 Bingo: Two heads are better than one (would also work for Illustrated or Youths!) For two months of the year, all through high school, Deja and Josiah are best friends, while working at the local Pumpkin Patch extraordinaire. For four years, from the start of September until Halloween, they’ve been dutifully serving customers in the Succotash hut, and sharing pretty much everything with one another for those two months. Once they go back to school, they don’t really interact. This year is different. Deja and […]

Reading to dogs is fun!

Trick or Treat, Little Critter by Mercer Mayer

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I took my niece to something my library calls Dog Tales on Monday.  Once a month they bring therapy dogs into the library for an hour or so, and have kids who are just starting to read sit on the floor with the dogs and read to them.  It’s pretty awesome, because obviously the dogs don’t judge how well the kids are reading.  The kids gain confidence in their reading and get to pet some really cute dogs at the same time. So I got […]

Another super-addictive teen mystery (#Youths!)

Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen M. McManus

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Before I write the review for Karen M. McManus’ new book Two Can Keep a Secret, I want to urge everyone to check out her first book: One of Us is Lying, which was one of the best books I read a few years ago. Tightly plotted, with a great solution, and characters that actually felt like real teens. I absolutely loved it and highly recommend it to anyone who likes YA and mysteries/thrillers. Because of the category, I’m tagging this as my #Youths! bingo square. Or […]

Bingo #3!

Jackaroo or The Tale of Qwyn by Cynthia Voigt

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This was hands-down one of my favorite books growing up, and I happened across my old copy of it when cleaning out my basement. What better way to fill the Youths square than with a trip down memory lane, and I was not disappointed. Jackaroo, or The Tale of Gwyn, as it’s now called, was just as solid and enjoyable today as it was 22 years ago when I bought it (based on its cover) at the scholastic book fair. Gwyn, our main character, is […]

Civilization sucks

Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George

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CBR11bingo: Youths! Julie of the Wolves is the story of a 13-year-old Eskimo girl in Alaska named Miyax who is torn between the “old ways” of the traditional Eskimo people and the new ways that are taking hold of the larger communities in Alaska. When the novel opens, Miyax is lost on Alaska’s North Slope, having run away from home. Hungry and desperate, she attempts to communicate with a wolf pack, ingratiating herself to them until they accept her as one of their own. The […]

So many bad tropes (Bingo: Youths!)

Dragon Called (Deadweed Dragons, Book 1) by Ava Richardson

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If the dragons from this book call you, reject the call and change your number. Actually, that’s not entirely fair. The dragons, from what I read, were fine. It was everything else that needed a lot of work. I gave up on page 139, read the last three or four pages (kind of like I did with Jane Eyre in high school, tbh) and tossed this on the “read” virtual shelf. It needs a good line editor for a start.



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