Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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The Band that rocked the courts

We Sing From the Heart: How The Slants® Took Their Fight for Free Speech to the Supreme Court by Mia Wenjen, Simon Tam and Victor Bizar Gómez

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We Sing From the Heart: How The Slants® Took Their Fight for Free Speech to the Supreme Court by Mia Wenjen, Simon Tam (Foreword), and Victor Bizar Gómez (illustrator). I had never heard of the band, The Slants. I had never heard of their legal struggles to have the name they want. I was unaware that there was such a thing as “Chinatown Dance Rock.” But there is a band called The Slants. They had an eight year battle to patent their name. And there […]

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 […]



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