Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Edna Ferber

So Big by Edna Ferber

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“Until he was almost ten the name stuck to him. He had literally to fight his way free of it. From So Big (of fond and infantile derivation) it had been condensed into Sobig. And Sobig DeJong, in all its consonantal disharmony, he had remained until he was a ten-year-old schoolboy in that incredibly Dutch district southwest of Chicago known first as New Holland and later as High Prairie. At ten, by dint of fists, teeth, copper-toed boots, and temper, he earned the right to […]

My best friend is usually the one I’m currently reading

This Book Is My Best Friend by Robin Robinson

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When you have a best friend who gets you, you always want to be with them. But what happens if your best friend is also someone else’s? Well, that would be a slightly different story than This Book Is My Best Friend, but when two kids in a library find their best friend, a special book about robots and mice, they both want to take it out. But there are two of them, and only one book. As they try and convince the other why […]

Ray Bradbury

The October Country by Ray Bradbury

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“Aimee watched the sky, quietly. Tonight was one of those motionless hot summer nights. The concrete pier empty, the strung red, white, yellow bulbs burning like insects in the air above the wooden emptiness. The managers of the various carnival pitches stood, like melting wax dummies, eyes staring blindly, not talking, all down the line.” The opening story and a few of moments of the introductory material for this collection tell you a bit of where we’re headed. In general, these are listed as “macabre” […]

Gazing at the stars

The Thing to Remember About Stargazing by Matt Forrest Esenwine

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The Thing to Remember About Stargazing is to have fun. But there are other things you should do as well, and the book by Matt Forrest Esenwine tells everything about them. The poetic wonder filled story is contemporary with feeling and is emotional. There is the idea of awe that one should approach stargazing with, as the author tells us. Things flow, are soft, but strong, and fit the illustrations well. I am not sure of what format Sonia Maria Luce Possentini used for the […]

Is this book perfect? No, but it is a da*n good start

Why? A Story for Kids Who Have Lost a Parent to Suicide by Melissa Allen Heath

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I am going to say that Why? A Story for Kids Who Have Lost a Parent to Suicide is a terribly sad, but honest, and well-done book. Due in mid-November 2023 anyone who has lost a person to death by suicide should read this. Granted, it might be a bit “touchy feely” but then again it is for kids and not adults. The voice is that of the child and again, honest. They talk about why daddy was sick, that you cannot catch depression (point […]

One peeved off tornado coming through

I Am a Tornado by Drew Beckmeyer

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I was doing some Twitter browsing the other day, and found this book, that book, and other (screen shot screen shot screen shot). As the TBR list grew, I saw a happy little tornado and the author/illustrator promoting it (or maybe it was a fan, by that time I had really gotten lost in a sea of books and do not remember). That book was named, I Am a Tornado. Why was Drew Beckmeyer’s book eye catching? Again, a happy (or so it looked like […]



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