Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Two boys, one city, and their places in it

Moonwalking by Zetta Elliott and Lyn Miller-Lachmann

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Moonwalking is an interesting story about friendship in early 1980s America. The characters are both likable and relatable, and the (SPOILER) not so happy ending, is a nice change of pace from having it “all be okay” and working out in the best possible outcome.  The tone mostly feels realistic (though I am not sure (SPOILER) if Pie sending his address to JJ would have happened). The supporting cast could have been explored a bit more, but what is needed to promote and support the […]

She said No

Choosing Brave: How Mamie Till-Mobley and Emmett Till Sparked the Civil Right Movement by Angela Joy

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Choosing Brave: How Mamie Till-Mobley and Emmett Till Sparked the Civil Right Movement could actually be argued as just how Mamie Till-Mobley started the movement. I say that knowing what happened to Emmett Till, but I say that also because one mother stood up and said, “No. The land that killed my son does not get to keep him. No. They cannot tell me I cannot open this casket. No. They will not silence me.” And she did this at great risk to herself. But […]

The Next Chapter

Run Book One by John Lewis

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Run Book One is an easier read than the March trilogy by the same team of John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell, and L. Fury. However, there are pages that are terribly crowded with text that covers the illustrations and can make it difficult to read at times. For me, the combination of the black and white illustrations and this crowded information makes everything blur together. Along with a physically dark format (the black colors can be solid), sometimes I lost the message being told. […]

These kites fly without wind

Flying Kites: A Story of the 2016 California Prison Hunger Strike by Stanford Graphic Novel Project

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Regardless of personal feelings of the legal system, or the rights/privileges you feel a prisoner deserves due to crimes committed verses what we would consider an “innocent confinement,” this graphic novel, Flying Kites: A Story of the 2016 California Prison Hunger Strike by the Stanford Graphic Novel Project, is an eye-opening piece of literature. The Stanford Project chooses a subject of importance, and recently, they choose one that would highlight one of the largest hunger strikes the California prison system had seen. It would shine […]

A monumental achievement that mostly worked like I thought it would

Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley

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I was shocked to see that this book had only been reviewed one time for Cannonball Read. My cultural frame of reference for this show is that it came out before my time, was one of the biggest shows in the history of television. The show premiered in January of 1977 and Part I garnered a 40.5 share. The show was aired over the course of a single week because CBS was afraid it was going to be a bust, and preferred one bad week […]

Even the greatest of us may be blind

Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington

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Booker T. Washington was born into slavery sometime around 1856. Following emancipation, he and his family moved to West Virginia to be with his mother’s husband, an escaped slave. He taught himself to read, and was able to attend school through perseverance and hard work. Working in coal mines and salt furnaces, he was eventually able to go to Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) for higher education. In 1881, Samuel Armstrong, Hampton Institute president, recommended Washington to be the leader of the new Tuskegee Normal […]



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