Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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From dump to park

Once a Wasteland: From Toxic Dump to National Park by Diane Muldrow and Amy Jindra Hodgson

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Starting off almost poetically, Once a Wasteland: From Toxic Dump to National Park moves into the facts quickly. Everything is laid out in simple, but not simplistic terms. The overall tone is good, it allows you to access a piece of history and the extras allow the book to grow with the reader. However, “points” are lost due to the fact environmental stories are not new, it was not necessarily told in a new manner and I had questions that were not answered, such as […]

Of course, after building up this title, you will need to wait until April 2026 for reading

Unbreakable: A Japanese American Family in an American Incarceration Camp (A Picture Book) by Minoru Tonai, Jolene Gutiérrez, and Chris Sasaki

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When you read as many picture books as I do, once in a while one of two things (or both) can happen. The first is you think you’ve read it before (or at least a sample) or things start to feel similar due to similar subjects. A subject I am interested in are the Japanese-American internment camps from World War II.  This is partly because I have family who is Japanese-American and when I realized this could be them it made it personal (I know […]

What can a potato do?

Alberto Salas Plays Paka Paka con la Papa: Join the Quest with Peru's Famed Scientist and Potato Expert by Sara Andrea Fajardo and Juana Martinez-Neal

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As with several books I was not going to read, Alberto Salas Plays Paka Paka con la Papa: Join the Quest with Peru’s Famed Scientist and Potato Expert by Sara Andrea Fajardo and Juana Martinez-Neal (illustrator) was one of them, but it eventually found its way to my TBR pile as it was on a Best of 2025 Picture Book list. This was the final sign that told me I probably should read it. I was still nervous as when a book gets that hyped […]

We means We

While We the People Is All the People: A Picture Book by Howard W. Reeves and Duncan Tonatiuh

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While We the People Is All the People: A Picture Book talks about an important subject, I did not feel there was anything new or fresh added. Howard W. Reeves knows what they wanted to say and that comes across. They wanted to show how we are a community, that freedoms belong to all, and in a poetic fashion shows how we can accomplish this. But we have heard similar things before. However, the presentation of the illustrations by Duncan Tonatiuh was interesting and did […]

Yaaaaaass Queen! You ruled!

What Kind of Queen?: A Royal Biography of Drag Queen and Activist José Sarria by Kyle Casey Chu, Andrew W. Shaffer and Cindy Lozito

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The subject of being a queer kid in a children’s book, even a picture book, is not new. However, the format of What Kind of Queen?: A Royal Biography of Drag Queen and Activist José Sarria gives things a fresher feeling and makes a relatively unknown person accessible. The extras add to the bigger picture of who and what Jose Sarria was, but before you get there, to the end of Sarria’s life and accomplishments he was a child who knew how to be himself. […]

Trivializing death

Obitchuary: the Big Book of Death by Madison Reyes and Spender Henry

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I’m grieving right now and I’m pretty sensitive. So I probably should have considered my mental state when I saw Obitchuary by Madison Reyes and Spender Henry at the library, but I didn’t consider anything when I checked it out because it’s called Obitchuary. I like puns, dark humor, and am easily entertained. It’s a fun, interesting book of trivia, but it doesn’t have much besides factoids. I found out that caskets and coffins are not the same thing! Coffins roughly mimic the human shape […]



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