Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


When generational trauma meets childhood trauma

Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson

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This was our March book club selection, and I really enjoyed it. I read the author’s debut novel, Black Cake, in February and I feel like she resolved all the issues I had with her writing in that novel here. If anything, I think she could have devoted a bit more time to the past but she genuinely made me care about the present day characters. Good Dirt in this case refers to clay, and a family’s historical legacy that they trace back to an […]

Historical middle grade with unions!

The Pecan Sheller by Lupe Ruiz-Flores

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The Pecan Sheller is set during the late 1930s and follows Petra, a thirteen-year-old girl who has to leave school and get a job shelling pecans after her father’s death in order to help her Amá pay the bills and take care of Petra’s younger siblings. While working in the pecan factory, Petra makes new friends, but also is confronted with terrible working conditions and seeing many people get tuberculosis and die. When one of her new friends dies and the factory owners want to […]

A Different Look at History

The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis by George Stephanopoulos

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The story: George Stephanopoulos takes look at the history of the Situation Room, from its inception during JFK’s presidency to how it’s being used today. Each chapter focuses on a different president, and most of them zero in on one specific incident that occurred during their presidency in which the Situation Room came into play (for example, the Jimmy Carter chapter focuses on the hostage crisis in Tehran). Why I read it: My dad recommended it, and I love this kind of book. What I […]

“In these islands there is no certainty. Bring your own food, your own gods, your own flowers and fruits and concepts. “

Hawaii by James A. Michener

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CBR16 Bingo: Détente – This book is all about all the different peoples and cultures that came to settle the Hawaiian Islands, and ends at the point that they really begin to comfortably and fairly coexist. Hawaii is a beautiful place with a complicated history, having over the course of more than one thousand years been settled by many peoples from many places, all of which have wrestled over its lands and wealth and made their indelible mark. This book is over a thousand pages long […]

In 2017 Wisconsin cheesemakers produced 704,093,000 pounds of cheddar.

Cheese The Making of a Wisconsin Tradition by Jerry Apps

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Cheese: the Making of a Wisconsin Tradition is an example of what is both good and bad with history writing. On the good side, it’s pretty well-researched and lots of good factual info; on the bad, it’s kind of dry and there’s very little narrative continuity. The opening section is an introduction to the subject, meaning some technical definitions, the author’s personal interest, and brief historical overview. The history starts with farmers settling the areas now called Wisconsin and home-cheesemaking. The transition to dairy farming […]

Witnessing History on the Ground

Brave Bird at Wounded Knee by Rachel Bithell

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When the occupation and siege at Wounded Knee hits the news, Patsy’s classmates are annoyed or dismissive, but Patsy is worried for her aunt’s family, who live nearby on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. When I was younger I was completely hooked on those Dear America diaries about girls living through turbulent eras of American history. There was something about getting an average girl’s perspective of historic events that really immersed me in the story. Brave Bird at Wounded Knee follows a similar format, though […]



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