Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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The boy, the wardrobe, the legacy

The Boy Behind the Wardrobe: How C.S. Lewis Grew Up to Create Narnia by Suzanne Poulter Harris and Mira Miroslavova

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The Boy Behind the Wardrobe: How C.S. Lewis Grew Up to Create Narnia by Suzanne Poulter Harris and illustrated by Mira Miroslavova (due mid-late October 2026; read via an online reader). Most people have read the C.S. Lewis series of Narnia. I am not most people. Granted, a teacher did read one or two to us in about third or fourth grade, but I really do not remember them. I do vaguely remember the movies of a few years back (pre X-Men James McAvoy), but […]

These characters have SO much in common, but their crippling insecurities may be the worst thing they share

While You Were Seething by Charlotte Stein

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3.5 stars Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own. This book will be out on April 9th. Daisy Emmett is an excellent PR manager and has successfully managed a number of difficult clients, but trying to repair the image of famous romance author Caleb Miller, after he very publicly declared to the world that “happy endings are for fools”, might be her most difficult job yet. Their mutual dislike of one another started when they were […]

Gals being literary rivals, then pals, then more?

Ladies in Hating by Alexandra Vasti

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Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own. Lady Georgiana Cleeve was disowned by her father when she announced that she was the author of several popular novels, and has lived alone with her mother ever since, cut off from all contact with her brothers, convinced that the scandal she brought on herself and her family would irrevocably tarnish the reputations of anyone connected to her. She is selling well and her books are popular, but for […]

Do you think I read a lot?

Clara the Triumphant Rhinoceros: A True Story by Jane Kurtz

Woody's Words : Woodrow Wilson Rawls and Where the Red Fern Grows by Lisa Rogers

Woods & Words: The Story of Poet Mary Oliver. by Sara Holly Ackerman

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Biographies are a fun genre.  You can find out fun facts about favorite authors, poets or even rhinoceroses. Yes, rhinoceroses can have a biography, too. After all, it is hard for them to hold a pencil in their hoof for them to write an autobiography. Therefore, I will start off with Clara the Triumphant Rhinoceros: A True Story (in case you doubt me that this is a biography of a rhino, there is “true story” in the title). Jane Kurtz created a story that gives […]

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, […]



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