Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Charles Addams, Shel Silverstein, AA Milne and Edward Gorey had a baby this would be its cousin.

The Boy Who Lived in a Shell: Snippets for Wandering Minds by John Himmelman

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If Charles Addams, Shel Silverstein, AA Milne and Edward Gorey had a baby this would be its cousin. The Boy Who Lived in a Shell: Snippets for Wandering Minds by John Himmelman is not necessarily spooky or kooky like Addams or Gorey; or rhyming like Silverstein and does not have the sweetness or innocence of Milne, but a mixture that is all its own. Due mid-March 2025, I read via an online reader’s copy. The stories the boy talks about, or actually writes, are on […]

Ducking ducks and Women in Pants!

Mr. McCloskey’s Marvelous Mallards: The Making of Make Way for Ducklings by Emma Bland Smith

Cloaked in Courage: Uncovering Deborah Sampson, Patriot Soldier by Beth Anderson

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This tale by Emma Bland Smith is the one that imagines how things went when Robert McCloskey decided to write Make Way For Ducklings. Their take is a bit poetic license I am sure, however Mr. McCloskey’s Marvelous Mallards: The Making of Make Way for Ducklings, is a fun way to see how one of his most famous works was made. From real ducklings to full grown ducks; from editors not willing to take the “okay” and from his own need to have things perfect, […]

Elementary, my dear reader

Arthur Who Wrote Sherlock (Who Wrote Classics)  by Linda Bailey

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Ages ago I found an online reader link to a book. It looked interesting, but not one I wanted to read right away. I put it in my saved links and forgot about it, until one day I was going through those saved links and found Arthur Who Wrote Sherlock (Who Wrote Classics) by Linda Bailey again. It is a clever telling of the life and times of the author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The narrator tells us this story as if the two of us (narrator […]

Life imitates art, which is inspired by quiet village life

Miss Buncle's Book by D.E. Stevenson

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15-word review: Anonymous spinster Barbara Buncle writes a book to pay the bills, her entire village rages. This witty novel, originally published in 1934, features rather plain and unassuming village spinster Barbara Buncle falling on hard times and writing a novel to make enough money to be able to pay her bills. She briefly considered keeping chickens but doesn’t like birds. As Miss Buncle hasn’t really been anywhere or experienced much outside village life, she uses her own neighbours and the village of Copperfield where […]

You won’t have to write a book report on these

Who Is R. L. Stine by M.D. Payne

Who Was Maurice Sendak by Janet B. Pascal

Who Was Ernest Hemingway by Jim Gigliotti

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I know some are familiar with the Who Are/Who Was series? And, I have written abut them before, so saying they are books about a subject (person for the Who Are/Was, place or thing for the What Is/What Was), and they have realistic, black and white illustrations that are not necessarily “fantastic” but get the point across and there is a double timeline at the end (for the subject, in this case  three authors, and the world timeline) is redundant. But needed as an intro […]

A cute fairy tale retelling

By the Book by Jasmine Guillory

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3.5 stars Isabelle (her friends call her Izzy) was so elated when she got a job as an assistant editor for a big publishing company. It was like a dream come true. Several years later, when she’s overworked, underappreciated and still living with her parents at twenty-five, without even getting a promotion, she is starting to wonder if she should change careers. After having her own attempts at writing a book politely criticised by one of her more senior colleagues, that’s another dream she’s shelved, […]



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