Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I believe in mermaids and sister-cousins

My Cousin's Mermaid: A Story from Poland by Anna Staniszewski

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cbr15bingo Europe I saw it in a catalog. I saw it online. I was thinking it was a, “I probably should read this” book, but maybe not right away. Then my book dealer hooked me up with a sample copy of My Cousin’s Mermaid: A Story from Poland. It was now time to read (except I had to actually work and not have fun by reading. A drawback to getting your book fix sent to you at work).be Anna Staniszewski took the legends, folklore and stories […]

Even grownups have fears

Melvina Whitmoore (More or Less a Horror Story) by Faith Capalia

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cbr15bingo Adulthood: Melvina is an adult, but has relatable issues for all of us. I was looking for a book that was a smidgen more spooky when I picked up Melvina Whitmoore (More or Less a Horror Story). Not that I wanted horror (after all it was a picture book for kids), but something “spooky” (like a ghost who says boo a lot and shakes some chains, or something like that). Instead, we get a story of Melvina Whitmoore who is afraid of everything (spiders, […]

Hungry?

100 Chapatis by Derek Mascarenhas

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cbr15bingo Edibles: While not just another “food book” this book is about how food connects family When I first looked at 100 Chapatis I figured it was another food book. And it is; and it isn’t. What it is about is the love a grandparent/grandfather and grandchild/grandson have together. It is about their culture. It is about their food. It is about remembering the grandmother. And it is about having patience when your new sibling is on the way. It also is about the worries […]

It’s not nice to spy on people hiding in the woods

What We Saw: A Thriller by Mary Downing Hahn

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cbr15bingo: Nostalgia: For the days when I first read this author, a young kid with no adult problems! When I was asked who my favorite author was as a kid, usually I would say Mary Downing Hahn. I had others (Walter Dean Myers, R. L. Stine, Christopher Pike, to name a few), but she was always one. Then, as an adult a gal I met via pen palling said she liked her too, so we bonded over our like of this author.  And when I […]

The Black Cauldron

The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander

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The second book in the Prydain Chronicles is also the name by which 90% of people are familiar with this story and the characters, because it shares the name with a Disney movie. The Disney movie in question is considered one of the blackest sheep in the entire library, because hooboy is it dark and scary. The villain is the Horned King, borrowed from the Book of Three and turned into a non-comical Skeletor. The Horned King’s dungeons, weird sidenote, are a marvel of background […]

“I could tell you the facts, or I could tell you how it felt.”

The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty

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I’ve missed so many reviews. But so many that I would have written feel like they were about books read in a different year all together, not just in the last two months. That’s because they were really read in a different part of my life. My father died on June 13, 2023. Thursday would have been his 65th birthday. We knew it would happen, sooner than we wanted, but it still felt too soon. Too fast. I don’t have good words to talk about […]



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