Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About NTE

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Rambling around the internet; helping niblings maneuver through college, learn their ABC's and deal with middle school (usually all on the same day); reading to remain alive.

NTE's Reviews:

There’s space for more than one friendly ghost

Gilbert the Ghost by Guido Van Genechten

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Just in time to grab for your littles for spooky season -> Gilbert is an adorable ghost, who doesn’t really know how to ‘ghost’. And when he tries to learn, he just can’t get it right. And he… kind of doesn’t want to be spooky and scary and learn to shout BOOOO and haunt people & places. So when Gilbert is exiled to the abandoned tower, instead of learning to be scary in isolation, he instead makes a kitty cat friend named Meow, cleans and […]

Where Hands Go by Krystaelynne Sanders Diggs

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Trigger Warning: Book being reviewed discusses childhood sexual abuse, hereafter called CSA, just in case you need to skip.   Where Hands Go by Krystaelynne Sanders Diggs is a really well-illustrated resource that uses an easily accessible poem (whose rhyme scheme doesn’t hit 100% of the time, but you know that I’m much more of a stickler for that than most readers, and definitely child readers), to talk to kids about bodily autonomy.  Through really great illustrations of a young, black, female-presenting child & her mom, […]

https://cannonballread.com/2021/08/where-hands-go-nte/

Horizontal is just the way some of us live

Horizontal Parenting How to Entertain Your Kid While Lying Down by Michelle Woo

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Guys: I don’t even know how to explain to you how validating this book is.  I’ve been helping raise kids, while also living with chronic debilitating illnesses & disabilities for 27 years now.  Very often, that raising occurs from a horizontal position, out of necessity.  Oh, today we’re have vertigo for no goddamn reason? Great day to play Auntie NTE is the troll under the bridge who won’t let you pass. Oh, goodie, the treatment I had last week that was supposed to only have 1 […]

Feelings are hard; the least we can do is give kids the words to describe them.

Star Wars Search Your Feelings, Galactic Basic Edition by Calliope Class & Caitlin Kennedy

What to Do When You're Feeling Blue by Andi Cann

The Rabbit Listened by Cori Doerrfeld

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When I taught preschool, we did a lot of lessons on emotions.  I’m not sure there was anything we did over the course of the whole school year that didn’t somehow connect to emotions, since teaching kids how to deal with their own feelings and participate in a community where everybody else also had feelings was our overreaching goal, in the end.  We may have told parents we were teaching their kids the colors of the rainbow, but you best believe there were some lessons […]

2 Misses, and One Five Star Hit

Lulu Faces Loss & Finds Encouragement by Danica Thurber

Forever in Our Hearts by Kristina Andrade

Home in Heaven  by Stefan Waidelich

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I don’t know about all you, my fellow Cannonballers, but I’m the go-to book person in most of my circles. I would be very upset if this were not true, in fact.  Especially when it comes to picture books, which are what I’m both most educated in and most passionate about. But this means, that a lot of times I get asked about “What are good books about X hard thing?” and – while I almost always have a few essential recommendations for every given […]

Much Better, but with a*

My Friend Has Autism by Amanda Doering Tourville

The Children's Guide to Autism by Fiona Reeves

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In direct contrast to my last post, I’m here to discuss two more books that address Autism and Autistic people in much more relatable & respectful terms, and that can definitely go on my resource guide, even though neither of them is brand spanking new, either. First up, the pretty factual The Children’s Guide to Autism, which was published in 2015. It uses very clear language to discuss some of the strengths and weaknesses of Autistic people, and only ventures in to stereotypical portrayals once or twice. […]



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