Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“She sounds like someone who spends a lot of time in libraries, which are the best sorts of people.”

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Cathrynne M. Valente

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12 year old September is an only child whose father has gone off to war and her mother off to work, leaving her alone with nothing but her thoughts for company. Wishing to be away from her boring life and off on an adventure, the Green Wind hears said wish and spirits her off to Fairyland. Having recently come under new management, September finds Fairyland in turmoil. The beloved Queen Mallow has disappeared having been usurped by a new and far less lovable ruler, the […]

Our family’s favourite children’s books

I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen

This is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen

We Found a Hat by Jon Klassen

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#CBR11 Bingo: Award Winner  I Want My Hat Back has won award in at least three countries, including the Selezionato Mostra Internazionale d’Illustratazione per infanzia di Sarmede in 2011, E.B White Award Read Aloud Award for Picture Books in 2012, Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis for Bilderbuch in 2013. This is Not My Hat won the Caldecott Medal and the Canadian Booksellers Association Libris Award for Children’s Picture Book in 2013, and the Premi Llibreter de narritiva for Album illustrat and the Kate Greenaway medal in 2014. I Want My […]

You Can Swim Against The Tide

The Black Tides of Heaven by J.Y. Yang

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It’s ridiculous how much story is contained in this short novella. It’s like Hermione’s enchanted purse, it looks small but contains vast worlds and time. In 240 pages, J.Y. Yang takes Akeha and Mokoya from newborns to adults with lovers and families, and builds an empire in turmoil around them. The Black Tides of Heaven is the first four books of A Song of Ice and Fire in a novella. Mokoya and Akeha, the twin children of the Protector, were sold to the Grand Monastery […]

An Unexpected Take on a Classic

The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard

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  With my last review, of Pierce Brown’s Red Rising, I spent a bit of time musing on what might helps you decide whether or not to start new book series, and what compels you to continue. In the case of Aliette de Bodard’s The Tea Master and The Detective, I didn’t so much choose to start a new series as much as I stumbled into one. Thankfully, most of the books in the Xuya Universe can be read as stand alones, because as it […]

The things we do for book clubs (a parenthetical rant)

The Hum and the Shiver by Alex Bledsoe

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I was all excited when I discovered that a used bookstore near me has a science fiction book club. I listened to the audio book of their pick. It was wretched, but I’m still looking forward to the meeting. Hopefully it will make for some interesting discussion! I fully admit that urban fantasy is not my jam, so maybe this book is just fine and the fault was with the reader. However, the bratty, unlikeable main character (I refuse to call her the protagonist or […]

Unfortunately, This One Was a Miss for Me

You Must Not Miss by Katrina Leno

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Bingo Square: Youths! I was intrigued by MrsLangdonAlger’s review of this, but despite her warning of how it was hard to describe and defied expectations, the novel description on Amazon made me expect a certain narrative flow, and as a result, something about the ending didn’t quite work for me. It starts off so great! Magpie or Mags or Margaret, depending on who she is interacting with, is a sophomore in high school and close to failing.  Her family life has collapsed in the last […]



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