Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


No longer under his grandmother’s table

I Wish I Didn't Have to Tell You This: A Graphic Memoir by Eugene Yelchin

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I enjoy Eugene Yelchin as an author and illustrator. I have read several titles including, The Genius Under the Table: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain, Breaking Stalin’s Nose, and The Rooster Who Would Not Be Quiet! by Carmen Agra Deedy (illustrated by Yelchin). Therefore I was excited about I Wish I Didn’t Have to Tell You This: A Graphic Memoir written and illustrated by Yelchin. I was assuming it was going to be a memoir of his life during the early 1980s, but it […]

Between the Accident and the Incident

Curse of the Blumenthals by Phyllis Karas

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Three generations of journalist Phyllis Karas’s family are marked by two great tragedies – the car crash which killed six members of the family, and the murder committed by the first grandchild born after that accident hardly twenty years later. This is an interesting mash-up of a book – part family history, part true crime, and sometimes even a scrapbook. Karas dives into the crimes which impacted her family, whether they were those who committed them or the victims, studying how their effects rippled through […]

Unbury the secrets

Rubble: The Hidden Letters of the Warsaw Ghetto by Elisa Boxer and Oksana Drachkovska

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The book Under the Rubble: The Hidden Letters of the Warsaw Ghetto by Elisa Boxer and illustrator Oksana Drachkovska did not give me a warm and happy feeling. It gave me a cold and sad feeling. The theme is obvious by the title as we know what the Warsaw Ghetto was. Now, one would think that this is not a book for kids, and it is not for the very young or frankly overly sensitive. But when you know your child (or classroom) is ready, […]

Everyday Jewish Lives Divided by Time

Once There Was a Town: The Memory Books of a Lost Jewish World by Jane Ziegelman

Matzah Ball Blues by Jennifer Wilck

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I did not mean to make it a Jewish double feature, but I just happened to read these books around the same time, and it was interesting to see the same traditions discussed in a historical context and then in an average middle-class family from New Jersey. Once There Was a Town by Jane Ziegelman – 3 stars After the Holocaust, since entire shtetls had been reduced to just a handful of survivors, people across continents came together to put together yizkor books to record […]

Helping hands keeping stories alive

The Keeper of Stories by Caroline Kusin Pritchard

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The story within the pages of The Keeper of Stories by Caroline Kusin Pritchard and illustrator  Selina Alko is fairly simple. It is about the Jewish Theological Seminar library told in poetic language that tells from the start to the devastating fire in 1966. The publisher description says: When a fire breaks out at the Jewish Theological Seminary library, helping hands from across the community rally together to save the books and preserve the stories within the pages. Includes factual backmatter on the Jewish Theological […]

Two pieces of history around the world

A Place Called Galveston by Andrea Shapiro

Claudia Said Sí!: The Story of Mexico's First Woman President by Deborah Bodin Cohen, Kerry Olitzky and Carlos Vélez Aguilera

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Recently I mentioned to a friend of mine that there are a lot of political titles happening, even in the children’s genres. And most are slanted seriously and obviously in one direction or the other. Therefore, when I find something that is not political, but could fit current events I try to pay attention.  Two of those books are A Place Called Galveston by Andrea Shapiro and illustrator Valerya Milovanova, as well as Claudia Said Sí!: The Story of Mexico’s First Woman President by Deborah […]



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