Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

Little People, Big Dreams in one spot

Little People, BIG DREAMS: Treasury: 50 Stories of Brilliant Dreamers by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara and various illustrators

by Leave a Comment

Do you think that when Mozart was first performing, people realized they were living at the same time as someone who would have a centuries long influence on music? Do you think someone heard Freddie Mercury sing and said, “That boy is going to live forever?” Or did they realize they were walking on the Earth along with Neil Armstrong? It was not until recently that I realized Salvador Dali and I were breathing the same air!  Not to mention, I was living at the […]

Prose, poems and stories

A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe by Mahogany L. Browne

by Leave a Comment

While there are a lot of new titles out there, I needed to catch up on some older titles. Books, I keep “meaning to read” and never get around too. I picked up A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe by Mahogany L. Browne. I thought it was a book in verse, but it is more short essays and diary entries. Or as if someone is interviewing the narrator and they are just replying to questions.  Still, it was short and figured […]

Not the Alphabet book I grew up on

Queer History A to Z: 100 Years of LGBTQ+ Activism b by Robin Stevenson and Vivian Rosas

by Leave a Comment

Queer History A to Z: 100 Years of LGBTQ+ Activism by Robin Stevenson and illustrated by Vivian Rosas is a middle grade alphabet book that is also a landmine of wonder tidbits. The version I found was from 2024 and was still an online copy. However, it was not complete so I hope to find a finished copy sometime. The list of letters and definitions are not just A is for Activist, or M is for Marsha P (though they do make an appearance) but […]

Never too late to educate

Blues Boy: The B. B. King Story by Alice Faye Duncan and Carl Joe Williams

I Am the River: Sarah E. Ray and the Bob-Lo Boat by Patricia Lee Gauch, Leah Henderson and Kristle Marshall

by Leave a Comment

It might be the middle of February, but it is never too late to start reading about Black History. My favorite historical stories are about people we do not know a lot about. Or if we do know them, they are not huge. That is why when I saw Blues Boy: The B. B. King Story by Alice Faye Duncan, and illustrator Carl Joe Williams (available but read via an online reader) I almost did not read it. I mean, BB King is cool, don’t […]

She just wanted to be a doctor

Carlotta's Special Dress: How a Walk to School Changed Civil Rights History by Carlotta Walls Lanier, Lisa Frazier Page and Vanessa Brantley-Newton

by Leave a Comment

Carlotta’s Special Dress: How a Walk to School Changed Civil Rights History by Carlotta Walls Lanier, Lisa Frazier Page, and illustrator Vanessa Brantley-Newton   Read  via online reader, the book is actually out and about for purchase and reading. This book seemed like it would be “okay” or a nice book on a person I knew a little about, what a nice way to introduce them to kids, but would not be anything “wow.” Don’t judge a book by its cover and don’t assume because […]

Of course, after building up this title, you will need to wait until April 2026 for reading

Unbreakable: A Japanese American Family in an American Incarceration Camp (A Picture Book) by Minoru Tonai, Jolene Gutiérrez, and Chris Sasaki

by 1 Comment

When you read as many picture books as I do, once in a while one of two things (or both) can happen. The first is you think you’ve read it before (or at least a sample) or things start to feel similar due to similar subjects. A subject I am interested in are the Japanese-American internment camps from World War II.  This is partly because I have family who is Japanese-American and when I realized this could be them it made it personal (I know […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo