Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Bloody Magic Books and the Future Reread

Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Torzs

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You know it’ a good read when you start thinking about re-reading a book as soon as you finish it for the first time. Ink Blood Sister Scribe is the first book like that for me in a pretty long while. In some ways the premise is familiar but it still works: Esther and Joanna are half sisters from a family who guards a collection of magic books, but they’ve been separated for years for reasons neither of them fully understands; they need to reunite […]

Based on the Icelandic tradition of Jólabóka-flóðið

The Christmas Book Flood by Emily Kilgore

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The Christmas Book Flood by Emily Kilgore celebrates Jolabokaflod in a special way. This is a delightfully illustrated book, by Kitty Moss, about the joys of finding the right book as the right gift, and the family that you give it too. Then, while reading on Christmas eve with you hot chocolate (or chocolate bar), we see how the spirit of the season is among us. Based on the Icelandic tradition, we have a diverse family, their friends, and community waiting and getting ready for […]

A Remembrance of Things Past

Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen : Reflections on Sixty and Beyond by Larry McMurtry

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I have great affection for everything about this book: the Dairy Queen cover photo, the West Texas rumination, the author’s cherishing of books and words. What a delicious book. That DQ photo reminds me of the Dairy Queen I’d often stop at in Goldthwaite, Texas, at the intersection of Highway 183 and 16. I used to go there as a teenager when driving to college. Now I take my own kids there now when passing through. A DQ can be a cultural hub in a […]

So Practically Perfect it is Perfect

Once Upon a Book by Kate Messner and Grace Lin

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cbr14bingo New Level 2 (coming in February 2023)  The only thing that could make this book (Once Upon a Book) cooler is if Tomie de Paola was somehow involved. But since, sadly, he is no longer with us, this cannot not humanly be any better. Because Grace Lin and Kate Messner are perfection as it is solo, therefore, together they are out of this world awesome! This is a sweet book about imagination and some far out fantastic illustrations. The colors pop off the page, […]

I think I’d like to be Flora’s aunt

Rosetown Summer by Cynthia Rylant

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cbr14bingo Font Level Two Cynthia Rylant is known for their cute, young stories. If you like having a Happily Ever After ending you will usually get it. And Rosetown Summer is no exception. This adorable novella is a book two (Rosetown was book one in the Rosetown Books) that can be read as a standalone. The joys of the familiar mix with the fear of the unknown and change, but as our main character travels along the road from fourth to fifth grades, she learns […]

Clearly going to be one of my favourite books of the year

Book Lovers by Emily Henry

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You know in a lot of romantic comedies, the hero already has a girlfriend, but she’s stern, and demanding and seems to have absolutely no feelings that don’t revolve around her career and probably living in the big city? The woman who eventually gets left, so the hero can get with the charming, free-spirited, understanding and much more laid-back heroine of the rom-com? Nora Stephens is that woman. She loves her life in New York City, she loves her Peloton bike, she loves her designer […]



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