Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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The Greatest Library that Never Was

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

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I was a huge fan of the Night Circus, so I was ecstatic when the lovely faintingviolet shared her copy of the Starless Sea with me. To give too much of the plot away takes all the joy out of reading this story, but the baseline is that there’s a magical library hidden underground accessible by doorways above. The nature through which patrons find these doors varies to fate, and in recent years, someone’s been closing all the doors. At least until a grad student named Zachery stumbles […]

Buzz buzz and swarm away

Beehive by Jorey Hurley

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At first, I did not like Beehive. It is a larger picture book with just one word (swarm; keep, etc) per page. It is not until the end and the authors note that you actually get “something” that is solid. This tells you why the words that were used are important to bees. This is a page of facts and information that finally make this book more than what should be in a board book. Jorey Hurley’s book most likely will help with sight words […]

The end is the beginning

Clade by James Bradley

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Clade: “a group of organisms believed to have evolved from a common ancestor, according to the principles of cladistics.” Told over decades, Clade is a bit like a short story compendium of characters from the same family. Adam and Ellie start a family in the shadow of global warming and the catastrophes it will unveil. As they age and grow apart, the narrative shifts to other family members as they live through different iterations of the same problem: how to survive a world with closing […]

Gettin’ Bizzy

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I am sorry to say, I am not a fan of David Shannon. I can appreciate the hard work that goes into creating his art and his stories, but they have never really been my cup of tea. The illustrations are disjointed and harsh to my eyes. With that said, I know many people who enjoy his works and to them I say, “Fantastic!” Because it is always nice to know someone likes a book (even if it is not one you enjoy). I was […]

The night may be dark and full of terrors, I thought, but I’ve got a big stick.

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Ben Aaronovitch did a really smart thing with Foxglove Summer, which was to de-escalate, take it down a few notches, and bring us back to basics. I complained after Broken Homes that things were getting too complicated and also sort of repetitive. Foxglove Summer is a breath of wonderfully Peter Grant-laden fresh air. When you study Shakespeare, at some point or another, you get to the idea of the Green World. My college advisor was deeply in favor of Northrup Frye’s theory, and I have […]



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