Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Finding yourself

A Sky of Paper Stars by Susie Yi

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A Sky of Paper Stars by Susie Yi is probably more of a 3.5 than a pure 4 rating as there were a few bumps for me. However, I enjoyed seeing Korean culture, some of it I knew and other aspects new. My unscientific opinion is that probably Korean culture is not known well by the aimed age reader (a stronger 8 to 12). My experience with Asian based characters seems to lean towards Chinese first, with Japanese second, then the people of Taiwan and […]

A word by any other name would still be reindeer

Ánh's New Word: A Story about Learning a New Language by Hanh Bui

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I thought at first  that  Ánh’s New Word: A Story about Learning a New Language would be more about the learning of English as a second language than what it was. Now, yes, it is about learning English, but it is also about learning how to be brave, how to have the courage to try and the idea of family being there for you. Anh is a young child who moved to the US from Vietnam and is living in a relocation camp with her […]

Sisters finding each other

Unhappy Camper by Lily LaMotte

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I kept trying to read Unhappy Camper by Lily LaMotte for ages. But I couldn’t find a reader’s copy or if I had an online one, it would “time out” on me. Yet, in early May I found an online one and I jumped on it! (Well, not literally, as I would have knocked over my computer screen). And what I would finally read was a fun, thoughtful and interesting story about siblings and learning about who you truly are. Fun illustrations by Ann Xu […]

Talkin’ ’bout my best friend

Built to Last by Minh Lê,

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Built to Last by the fabulous author, Minh Lê, and the amazing illustrator, Dan Santat (no, I’m not biased at all), is an adorable story about friendship and the true and important things that cannot be broken. Sure things might fall and crash, and that can sometimes be funny, but there are few things that cannot have a do-over. Most things are able to have a fresh start, mostly because you have learned from any mistakes and know what is really important. The narrator is […]

The rom-com romp

Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Luen Yang

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I was hesitant to start Lunar New Year Love Story for a few reasons: I am not a romance reader; I thought the use of Leuyen Pham as the illustrator was an odd choice; and as I like Gene Luen Yang, would I build this book up too much and it would not live up to my hype?  Well, I am still not a romance reader and the arc was not how I run my romance life, but it was fun and heartwarming. (Granted if […]

Bình learns the game of life

Enlighten Me by Minh Lê

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Enlighten Me is a mindfulness/meditation graphic novel for the 10 and up crowd. There is a little bit of a social theme added with the racism the school bully directs towards the narrator, but the idea is how to deal with the emotions and a situation that triggers and not necessarily this particular situation. The entire book is mostly in “thought bubbles” as the narrator and his family are at a silent retreat, and therefore, unable to talk once there. But to allow the teachings of […]



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