This was the book that I almost didn’t read.  I was at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) convention and of course going through the exhibition hall.  This was my first convention and I didn’t know that on the last day of the convention, the vendors give out books like candy.  So all I knew was that people were shouting out book titles and people were pushing and shoving to get them.  Basically it was a bibliophile’s Mardi Gras.  So I was at […]

The penultimate read for my first Cannonball go-around was selected by an astute member of my book club.  As race has risen to the forefront of our culture once again, she thought it would be interesting to read and discuss a book about…race.  The Color of Water by James McBride is the biography/autobiography of McBride’s mother and himself.  I should mention that McBride’s mother is Jewish and McBride’s father is Black.  I was interested to see how he would develop the narrative and what point […]

This latest read surprised–for the better.  I try to not judge a book by its cover, but let’s be honest, we all do it.  When I saw that someone had written a biography of Charles and Emma Darwin, and one for young adults at that, I was skeptical.  Partly because I wasn’t sure how you focus on the relationship between the man who changed science and his wife while keeping it palatable for young adults. But Deborah Heiligman did it in Charles and Emma: The […]