Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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The new familar

The Princess and the Grain of Rice by Tina Cho

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When I first started working at the bookstore, I decided I was going to collect Cinderella stories from around the world. I found so many I had to stop. There were just too many. Then I decided that I would read as many fairy tales as I could and only collect the ones that really hit the spot.  And what book hits a spot better than a Princess and the Pea story? Or more accurately  The Princess and the Grain of Rice. However, this time […]

The audiobook is a must.

The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar

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Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC. It hasn’t affected the contents of my review. Happy pub day to this lovely little book 🙂 Okay, I’m rounding this up to five stars because I can’t stop thinking about it. Setting aside re-reads, I think this might actually be the best book I read in February. This is a fairytale-esque novella about two sisters who sing to willow trees and have to deal with unwanted and wanted suitors, and it’s about the strength of […]

“Oh Catskins, why aren’t you dead yet?”

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi

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I first became aware of Roshani Chokshi when my kiddo discovered her Aru Shah middle grade series, the Pandava Quintet.  Printed in the “Rick Riordan Presents” line it focuses on Hindu mythology as Aru Shah embarks on adventures with her friends.  We even went to one of the Aru Shah book signings.  Chokshi was witty, charming, and engaging.  I left wanting to read the books but never got around to it.  In the past year I became aware of her fiction for older readers, particularly […]

Out of the Mouths of Nursemaids and Travelers

The Watkins Book of English Folktales by Neil Philip

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England has a great culture of letters, but when it comes to folklore, people often don’t think further than Jack and the Beanstalk. In this collection of English folktales though, we can see that the isles have a great tradition of oral storytelling beyond it. In my ongoing pursuit of folklore from around the world, I never really stopped to consider English folktales until this book reminded me that my knowledge of it was in fact pretty scanty. Over the course of about 400 pages, […]

“Didn’t you know the insides of dogs and cows and birds and fish are exactly like that of man? The only difference is the clothes we wear!”

The Narrow Cage and Other Modern Fairy Tales by Vasily Eroshenko, Adam Kuplowsky (translator)

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CBR16 Bingo: Dreams – Eroshenko’s fairytales give us glimpses of his dreams for a more compassionate and peaceful future where all are respected no matter their gender, race, class, or ability – and the fears he has about what may have to be done to achieve them. Fairytales as oral traditions bear the stamp of the cultures that tell them; fairytales when written by an individual bear the stamp of culture channelled through that individual, which is a different thing altogether. There really are some people […]

Seizing Your Own Destiny

The Princess Protection Program by Alex London

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When Rosamund is awoken from a hundred year sleep by a stranger’s kiss, she runs from him – and escapes into a strange school to join other fairytale princesses (and a prince) trying to avoid their futures. But all is not as it seems, and the headmistress may be keeping a sinister secret. At some point in the 2010s fairytale retellings seemed all the rage. I enjoyed them generally until they started blending together, but that doesn’t mean I’m not always up for a new […]



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