Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Stories from the 1% (no not THAT one)

I Can Make This Promise by Christine Day

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Recently I was lucky to present at our state comic con on Teen Girls in Space, and one of the focuses of my panel contributions was diversity in pop culture. I got to really dig into the still terrible statistics of representation in literature and media, and while it was nice to see the numbers getting better, all in all it is a “long way to go” situation – unsurprising to any Pajiban and Cannonballer, I am sure. Of the many major bummers, one super-major […]

“The important thing about Margaret Wise Brown is…” (cbr11bingo – true story)

The Important Thing About Margaret Wise Brown by Mac Barnett

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“The important thing about Margaret Wise Brown is that she wrote books.” Mac Barnett, if you haven’t spent any time with him, is one of the most delightful children’s book authors of our time.  If I summed him up in one insignificant word, I’d say “funny” because it mostly captures the breadth of his work, from his silly picture books to Wimpy-Kid readalike chapter books. But in his biography of predecessor Margaret Wise Brown, he showcases a positively stunning simplicity of language, a thoughtful exploration […]

Small but Mighty

The LIttle Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge by HIldegarde H. Swift, Lynd Ward (illustrator)

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Until a few years ago I didn’t know that this book from 1942 existed, and once I did, I still didn’t quite grasp where it was set, which little red lighthouse and great gray bridge it was talking about. How silly I felt when I was flipping through this one after a long day to discover that it is set along the Hudson River and the great gray bridge is the George Washington bridge which I drive over several times a year. In some ways […]

Drunk book choices are the best book choices

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So I brought fantingviolet to my library’s annual wine tasting, because my library is awesome like that.  With the advent of the self-checkout feature on their app, we get the lovely combination of drunken book selections!  We were drinking in the children’s section (being the youngest group at the wine tasting) and so I was able to peruse the lovely selection.  I picked up the audiobook of Kenny and the Dragon, because it looked interesting.  After I chose it, I realized that it was narrated […]

New adventures in an old favorite

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Labyrinth is one of my favorite movies by far.  And with the 30th anniversary of the movie happening a few years ago, there were a lot of celebratory books and figures and things that came out.  For three years on Free Comic Book Day, there was a short Labyrinth story included in the mix, and those eventually got published as a separate book.  The stories and illustrations are by Corey Godbey, who happened to be at New York Comic Con this year, so I was […]

It’s good to cry at fiction. It makes it real.

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“It’s good to cry at fiction. It makes it real.”   A friend once said that to me and like the dweeb I am I wrote it down and saved it. Because I have the coolest friends, #obvs, and because it is good to cry at fiction, it means it’s real. And let me tell you this book is the realest out there.   It’s also maybe a kids book?   Whatever. Chunky Rice is a turtle who decides to leave his best friend Dandel […]



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