Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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I’m not tough enough for the Canadian oil sands

Ducks by Kate Beaton

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I first became aware of Kate Beaton through her charming picture book, The Princess and the Pony, released in 2015.  My, at the time, young daughters loved the book about a tiny, warrior princess who wants a noble steed like the older warriors.  Instead on her birthday she is gifted a pony that farts too much. Shortly after the publication of her graphic novel autobiography, Ducks, in 2022, it seemed everyone on the internet was declaring what a good book it was.  However, I wasn’t really […]

There’s oil in those hills….and a lot of sh** too

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton

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TRIGGER WARNINGS in this book include, but not limited to: assault, drinking/drug use, language, death, environmental issues. The actual ducks of Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands do not show up until almost the end of the book, but are really only one part of a very large, complex and messy story. The “culture” of the oil camps is the setting for not just the day-to-day life of author/illustrator Kate Beaton, but also the coming-of-age of Kate’s understanding of how “things work” or should […]

Sad, informative, and moving

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton

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I’m not a big reader of graphic novels, but I usually read one or two a year and appreciate the differences in storytelling. With graphic novels, I’ve always steered towards memoirs, and Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands (2022) by Kate Beaton, is no different. I first saw Ducks on NPR’s Best Books List. I almost immediately felt a connection to Beaton. We’re not too far apart in age, and I felt her pain as she tells the story of how she struggled after she graduated from college with […]

“Everyone’s oil sands are different, and these were mine:” A Masterful Graphic Memoir

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton

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I’ve been waiting several years to read this as Kate Beaton has been working on it and I’m super happy to say that this was well worth the wait. Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands is a graphic memoir that covers two years that Beaton spent working in the Albertan oil sands. I got Maclean’s for a long time (back when it was weekly!) so I have a good base knowledge about the oil sands and their attendant environmental and social problems. Her nuanced […]

Doing everything I can to complete my double Cannonball

King Baby by Kate Beaton

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See, some people might accuse me of desperation at this point, reviewing a 32-page children’s book I’ve read to my son more times than I can consciously count, considering he’s now nearly three, and my husband and I started reading it to him when he was only just a baby himself, long before he had any grasp of what the book was actually about or what the illustrations showed. Those people might not be entirely wrong. I have, however,  come to the conclusion that due […]

23: Step Aside, Pops

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What is better than Hark! A Vagrant? Why, a second collection of Kate Beaton comics, of course! There isn’t a whole lot to say that would be new from the first collection, but I am going to try my best. Forgive any squeeing I might do, because words don’t do this collection justice. Beaton knows her audience well, and the hits keep coming. Bronte jokes, peasant jokes, revolutionaries, and feminist/suffragette panels abound. Beaton revives her Nancy Drew cover panels, which delighted me to no end. […]



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