CannonBookClub

The Hate U Give

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

September 15, 2022 by Classic Leave a Comment

Updated review September 15, 2022: Re-read this for Cannonballread’s Banned Book week. I did something a bit different for this though. I really just re-read my favorite parts of this book (which there are a lot) but then I also re-watched the movie that came out based on this book. I have to say parts of the movie were very well done, such as when Starr and her mother and others film the police with their phones when her father is being accosted by the […]

The 1619 Project

The 1619 Project by Editor: Nikole Hannah-Jones

August 31, 2022 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Jones’s opening essay from the original project is still part of this book, but the book begins instead with a new introduction to the collected book version. I was really excited to hear this new introduction because it addressed something I thought was missing from a lot of the discourse around the project. I am not a historian and would never claim to be one, and the only way I know how to think through historical writing is through comparison among different texts. In addition, […]

The Banned Books #CannonBookClub We’re With The Banned

August 24, 2022 by faintingviolet 2 Comments

Cannon Book Club is live! Join in any or all of our three discussion posts: The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story by Nikole Hannah-Jones All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas It is a little hard to believe, but we are a little over three weeks away from our Banned Books #CannonBookClub. (Where has this summer gone?) In honor of Banned Books Week’s 40th birthday we are reading All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson, The 1619 […]

“Intentions always look better on paper than in reality.”

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

August 20, 2022 by faintingviolet Leave a Comment

Another review of a Book Club choice, 2017’s The Hate U Give. A peek behind the scenes: this one almost got left off the voting, having been popular over the years but as it’s the 30th most challenged book of the decade 2010-2019 and the fifth most challenged in 2021 the argument to include it felt justified. This YA novel was challenged and banned in school libraries and curriculums because it was considered “pervasively vulgar” and because of drug use, profanity, and offensive language. Other […]

“It’s time for the world to let queer black boys unpack their shit.”

All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson

August 10, 2022 by faintingviolet 3 Comments

When we had our book club vote for September, I was secretly hoping that All Boys Aren’t Blue would be one of the ones we chose. I was flabbergasted that in November of last year the memoir had a criminal report filed with the Flagler County Sheriff’s office by a member of the Flagler County School Board arguing that the book’s inclusion in three district school libraries violated state obscenity laws because it contained sexually graphic material. It has also been removed from school libraries […]

More Memoir-Manifestos, please!

All Boys Aren't Blue by George Matthew Johnson

July 28, 2022 by booktrovert 4 Comments

CBR Bingo – Bodies, because this book is all about how the author came to accept his identity – his life in his queer, Black body – it’s a letter of acceptance for everyone who might need it, which includes all of us. I loved this memoir – this vulnerable, beating heart of a book – which explores the life of a young, queer Black man growing up in New Jersey. Johnson describes how he came to accept himself even as he struggles with two […]

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