Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Rough but Important Middle Grade Novel

No Place Like Home by James Bird

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This is a rough, emotional story, but also a story full of hope and love. Opin is living in a car with his mom and older brother, Emjay, since they left his father several years ago because he was violent and abusive. Emjay has a tendency to run off when they stop places on their way to Watts Los Angeles and is full of anger, which sometimes is expressed in violence and being cruel with his words towards his family. But Opin finds a dog, […]

Their Lives are Not an Adventure for You

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Best for: People who have wondered about those who life on the edges of our society. In a nutshell: Journalism graduate student decides to investigate the lives of those who live in the tunnels underneath Manhattan. Line that sticks with me: “ ‘This Coalition for the Homeless is just bullshit,’ he says. ‘Red tape ad litigation. They are procrastinators. They thrive on the homeless. Without us, they wouldn’t have jobs, and they know it.’ “ Why I chose it: A colleague who knows I read […]

They say you can’t go home again.

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My favorite place in the world when I was a kid was the basement children’s room of the town library. I even ended up working there in high school. I systematically read my way around the YA books on the perimeter of the room, going back to certain ones over and over. One of the series I revisited a few times was the Tillerman Cycle, a seven-novel series which starts with Homecoming (1981). There are many children’s books and YA novels that have not aged […]

Rubin’s Vase

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I normally have my review half-written in my head before I start writing it, but I just don’t even know what to say about this book. Let’s start with a necessary disclaimer: I picked this up as a married woman with one daughter, recently off an “I can’t have any more kids” health crisis (in my case it wound up resolved, but I felt the feels), and I had recently taken in a homeless woman with a baby and it was causing a lot of […]

The hardest kind of book to review.

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Ask Me Why I Hurt is the memoir of a pediatrician who operates a mobile medical van providing treatment to homeless teenagers. It covers his marriage to fellow pediatrician Amy, family life over a decade, the growth of his van endeavor to eventually provide more services, and a number of stories of the kids he sees on the van. How am I supposed to review a book like this? On its own merits, it simply isn’t a very good book. Dr. Christensen seems to be […]



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