Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Finally, if you’re wondering if it counts and it feels like it counts, it counts.” (CBR11 Bingo)

Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi

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When Rainbow Rowell says a book is her favorite of the year, I am going to add it to my to-read list and am likely to track it down relatively quickly. In the case of Mary H.K. Choi’s Emergency Contact it fitting into a Bingo Square category (Youths!) made it all the better. Let’s get the big verdict out of the way early: this debut is very good and Choi does the thing that I like best about Rowell’s work, she builds imperfect and entirely […]

An Unflinching Historical YA Fiction of 1969 Malaysia

The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf

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CBR11 Bingo Square: Youths! This book was on the featured wall of the Young Adult section of our library, and the cover art immediately drew me in. Although written as a YA novel with a teenage protagonist, this novel specifically includes an author’s note at the beginning warning for content including racism, graphic violence, death, OCD and anxiety triggers. Suffice to say, this is a heavy book based on the real events of the 1969 race riots in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, albeit about a fictional […]

“… the war had been on for a long time now, and I could not even remember a time when the war had not been on.”

Fly Away Home by Christine Nöstlinger

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This book follows a 9-year-old girl living in Vienna with her family during the last days of WWII. Bombs are raining down on the city, food and other necessities are hard to find, and people are afraid of the approaching Russian army. This is pretty much an autobiographical account by Nöstlinger who was one of the most beloved and acclaimed authors of children’s and young adult’s books in Austria. This is, of course, a heavy subject to tackle in a children’s book, but Nöstlinger manages […]

Paper-Thin Premise

The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg

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Bingo Update: This is my YOUTHS! square, as it was not only published as YA, but feels pretty stereotypical of the genre as a whole, and not in a good way. The Paper Magician ostensibly takes us on the journey of our protagonist, Ceony (whose name I never figured out how to pronounce and still don’t really like) as she learns the magic of paper. In this universe, the magically inclined are bonded to a specific material, and then that is the only form their magic can […]

Do you believe in Magic?

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

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Cbr11bingo Youths I’m not sure I ever read this century-old classic of children’s literature when I was a kid, but I can understand why readers have loved it over the decades. It’s got everything: orphans, woodland creatures, an immense mansion on the moors of Yorkshire, and lots of secrets! And the overall message is a timeless one that really can’t be repeated enough — mental health and physical health are closely related and spending time in the natural world is good for the soul. The […]

Required reading for all teens, parents of teens, or anyone who knows a teen.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

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CBR11 Bingo: Youths!   This was one of those books that I had heard of but really didn’t know what it was about. I picked it up at a discount book sale based on name recognition alone; when I needed a YA selection for this bingo square, I dug it out of the TBR pile. Speak is a novel about a girl named Melinda, and picks up just as she starts her first year of high school.  From day one she is a social outcast […]



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