Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Mevan and their bike

The Bicycle: How an Act of Kindness Changed a Young Refugee’s Life by Patricia McCormick

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I did not read the entire article I had about some new books coming, but it was highlighting summer and bicycles. The list was around half a dozen titles long, all picture books. I figured I could locate copies of most of them. And in fact, was able to find online reader copies for all of them. However, four of them stood out for me. These four were different but still had familiar elements that I found comforting.  In The Bicycle: How an Act of […]

Bring Back My Color

The Gray City by Torben Kuhlmann

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While it was hard to put down, the pacing of the not-so-picture book The Gray City is a bit slow. Each chapter is only a few pages long (and as read via an online reader copy I am not sure of the final format size) but the page is filled. And even when everything is gray there is still color, hinting at the revelation our heroine, Robin, learns at the end of things.  This story unfolds, as said, a bit slowly. Torben Kuhlmann wants you […]

A week of family

Family Poems for Every Day of the Week : Poemas familiares para cada dia de la semana by Francisco X. Alarcón

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I have been holding onto over 1000 emails that have at least one online reader copy. At least one of those had four. I was skimming the titles, looking at the links… nope nope nope…. Delete, save, nope nope, next time…. Until I came to  Family Poems for Every Day of the Week : Poemas familiares para cada dia de la semana.  The other books were a mix of genres, but this said “Poems.” Okay, that is what I need. Something short and hopefully fun. […]

The might stand a ghost of a chance

All the Lovely Bad Ones Graphic Novel: A Ghost Story by Mary Downing Hahn

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All the Lovely Bad Ones Graphic Novel: A Ghost Story (novel by Mary Downing Hahn) and adapted by Scott Peterson, Naomi Franquiz, Brittany Peer and  Joamette Gil is probably my favorite of the novels by Hahn turned graphic novel. And their Wait Till Helen Comes was always a favorite book, so you’d think that adaptation would be my favorite, but there was something about this one that captured me. It probably was because Helen had been a favorite, and therefore, nothing lives up to it, […]

What lurks in the corn

The Girl in the Corn by Jason Offutt

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I’m starting my review of The Girl in the Corn, with the that there are big time TRIGGERS in this book. After all, it’s a horror book and therefore there are several horror images. Perhaps they could be more so, but even what they do show (such as the murder of a child, the brutal murder of the dog and several other people, plus drug use/abuse, guns, kidnapping, sex, and what I consider rape) is not pleasant to say the least, and, of course could […]

Couple of City Slickers in a John Wayne town

This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America by Navied Mahdavian

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Are you from CA and moved to The Middle of No Place? (Or from The City to The Country?) Did you try to live “off grid?” Did you mistake a coyote for a wolf? Do you think 2016 had the wrong person elected? If so, read this book, This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America by Navied Mahdavian. However,  if you think the right person was elected in 2016, keep walking. If you are looking for an interesting, but slightly self-centered, memoir, this […]



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