Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


I wish that top image was mine (thanks internet) but the review is mine

Brume: The Dragon Awakens by Jérôme Pélissier

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Brume: The Dragon Awakens by Jérôme Pélissier, illustrated by Carine Hinder Due September 2025   Read via an online reader copy.  What it is about: Magic, mischief and mystery. Well, there is more than that. Like Brume herself. She is a (publisher says feisty, I say down right bratty at times) young girl who is convinced she can do magic. She wants to be the village witch now that the old village witch has gone missing for several years. She is a child found in […]

Bishop might take Knight, but the Queen wins

Elsa's Chessboard by Jenny Andrus

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For the grandmother that wanted to play chess with her granddaughter, author Jenny Andrus wrote Elsa’s Chessboard. She was a child who did not have interest in an “old dusty game,” but now she is giving us a peek at the woman who would change chess in ways unexpected. Based on the life of Elsa Konstandt Weisz, we go from Vienna to San Francisco as a young Jewish woman flees WWII and makes a new home in the United States, all the while keeping her […]

Short book, a lot in it, trigger potential. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it?

Lost Boy by Jay Martin

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Do not judge a book by its cover has usually been a good rule to follow for me. A lot of the time, a cover does not cover enough of the story for you to really understand the “down and dirty” or the “nitty gritty meaning of things” and reading past the cover of your book (and maybe especially with comics and graphic novels), is smart. However, with Lost Boy by Jay Martin (and an introduction by Shawn Mendes highly recommending Martin’s work) you could […]

Comfort grease, foie gras and Mexican porn

Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley

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Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley is a graphic novel that I almost did not review here. Partly because it is from 2013 and who wants to read a book that old? Well, I did, so I figured maybe someone else would, too. And it is not just for a fan of Knisley (though you probably should be a fan as they have a lot of fun relatable memoir stories) and it is not just for foodies, though that might help a […]

From Yehiel to Henri

The Sky Was My Blanket: A Young Man's Journey Across Wartime Europe by Uri Shulevitz

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Uri Shulevitz can spin a yarn.  And when it is based in/about real events they hit even harder. One of the last writings of Shulevitz, The Sky Was My Blanket: A Young Man’s Journey Across Wartime Europe (due in August 2025, read via an online reader copy), takes another true World War II story and brings it to life in emotional text.  This time, instead of following Uri’s story during the war, we follow one of his fathers younger brothers, Yehiel’s parallel journey during the […]

From Innocent to not so

A Smart and Courageous Child by Miki Yamamoto

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The book was read. The book was being digested for thoughts. And it was almost not written about. That book was A Smart and Courageous Child by Miki Yamamoto. It is an odd, unusual, emotional, relatable, out there story. Everyone gets out of it what they put in, where they are in life, their likes and dislikes and hates and loves. It is an experience to read but what that experience that is, is up to you. A couple learns they are going to have […]



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