Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The new Guardian Knights

Juniper Mae Volume One: Knight of Tykotech City by Sarah Soh

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I had a small adventure when I first tried to read Juniper Mae Volume One: Knight of Tykotech City. Nothing fancy, just I had an online link, lost it, then found it again. Who knows how that happened; but it did. Then recently I went back to my stored online reader copies and was deleting the links that were no longer active. But Sarah Soh’s short graphic novel was. And since this was published March 2023 you can run out and get the book, too. […]

Food, Family, Fun

The Blue Bowl by Flo Leung

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The year 2024 is shaping up to have several interesting looking books, and picture books in particular. March 2024 will be giving us a story of how a young boy, Max, loves his family and their culture, but who also likes other things too within the pages of The Blue Bowl.   We see how Max and his family celebrate, how this family comes together in one large group of fun, and when the special blue bowls come out, he knows it is a very special […]

How much of yourself you have to leave behind in order to look like everyone else

Lie With Me by Philippe Besson

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I’m in this state of one-way desire. I feel this desire swarming in my belly and running up my spine. But I have to constantly contain and compress it so that it doesn’t betray me in front of others. Because I’ve already understood that desire is visible. ― Philippe Besson, Lie With Me I’m guessing that there was probably no bolt of lightning, just a warm night full of wine and fluttering moths and the feeling that nothing is really important and everything is possible. […]

Witchy ways

Witch Poems by Daisy Wallace

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If this book has not at least been challenged at least once, I would be amazed. Witch Poems edited by Daisy Wallace includes some fantastic poems. However, while this is a great collection of poetry about witches and spooky fun (and not so much fun), it can be dated with language and imagery. Trina Schart Hyman had a style that when you saw it, you knew it was them. They had diverse characters before diverseness was prominent in children’s books. Yet, there are some stereotypes […]

Wonderland-esque

The Wondrous Wonders by Camille Jourdy

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I thought that The Wondrous Wonders was going to be a quirky, but fun story about a young girl and wonderful, magical creatures that she has adventures with. It is an unusual fairytale that hints at the classics, but has some fresh ideas. Yet, the girl is not sweet; in fact, she is a self-proclaimed brat. Jo (we learn her name is) is dealing with her parents divorce, fathers remarriage and step siblings. She runs away from the area they are camping in, and decides […]

Excellent short story collection

Walking on Cowrie Shells: Stories by Nana Nkweti

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CBR15bingo Africa This book was a finalist for the Caine Prize for African writing  This 2021 collection of 10 short stories, Nana Nkweti’s debut work, is a riveting read. Each story is thought provoking, some are shocking, all are brilliantly written. This is the kind of book you could read quickly but it deserves to be savored.  Nana Nkweti is a Cameroonian American writer, and her stories focus on the experience of being a “hyphenated American.” For some who have come to the US from […]



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