Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Starting off my CBR (in April!) with a trio of crappily edited books

Stolen in a Small Town by Marie Wilkens

The Willow Springs Kidnappings by Roger Hayden

The Cabin by Robert J. Walker

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Welcome to my first post for CBR 16. I know it’s April. I’ve been a CBR posting slacker. I’ve been reading like a maniac though! I’ve read 33 books this year, so I figured it was about time I started posting about them!! Let’s get started… I think I started this trio of books at the end of 2023, but didn’t actually finish the first one until January of 2024, so it counts! They came as one book on my Kindle, but they were 3 […]

Just Your Basic Oklahoma Western

Cimarron by Edna Ferber

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I do love me some Edna Ferber.  The thing about her books is that they always read like big Technicolor epic movies, way before such a thing existed.  They certainly didn’t in 1929, when this was published.  But so many have been turned into such, like this book (twice, first time winning one of the first Best Picture Academy Awards), Show Boat, Giant, and Saratoga Trunk, to name a few. So our hero, Yancy Cravat, is a hot bull-headed force of nature.  Think Clark Gable […]

Old Sins Cast Long Shadows

Shadows of Berlin by David R. Gillham

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A decade after World War 2, Rachel Perlman may have moved to New York City and gotten married, but she is still haunted by her experiences as a Jewish girl hiding in plain sight in Berlin and the death of her mother. Despite what the blurb led me to expect, this book is not a World War 2 novel – at least, not exactly. Though Rachel’s experiences in Berlin hang over the entirety of the story, we spend most our time with her grappling with […]

Hard book to write about, easy book to read

Worried Whippet: A Book of Bravery (For Adults and Kids Struggling with Anxiety) by Jess Bolton

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Worried Whippet: A Book of Bravery (For Adults and Kids Struggling with Anxiety) by Jess Bolton is a cozy story about how a whippet learns to find the balance between afraid and not afraid, needing an indoor/sleeping like a cushion day and walking outside in the world with its “dangers”, and the fear of new experiences. Sweet illustrations show the adventures and misadventures (stolen chips anyone?) Written in the English of the UK (chips means French fries), though available, was read via an online reader […]

A street and community

Dear Street by Lindsay Zier-Vogel

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I read Dear Street some time back. I enjoyed it, but it was not a “wow best book ever.” However, as I was going through my saved online reader links recently, I found it again. And out of all the ones I was looking at (around a couple dozen or so) there were only a few still active. Therefore, I took it as a sign to read it again. And therefore, while it is available, the Lindsay Zier-Vogel and Caroline Bonne-Muller (illustrated by) book was […]

My sister the elephant

The Secret Elephant : Inspired By a True Story of Friendship by Ellan Rankin

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You have heard of Winnie The Pooh and Wojtek the Bear from Brothers In Arms but did you know about the elephant named Sheila? (Or Violet? As I’m finding conflicting accounts, yet I’m going with Sheila as that is what is in The Secret Elephant : Inspired By a True Story of Friendship by Ellan Rankin.) Despite the name difference, the story is one of heroism at another level. And maybe a little silliness. Our young elephant is by themselves, except for their zookeeper. The […]



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