Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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A word by any other name would still be reindeer

Ánh's New Word: A Story about Learning a New Language by Hanh Bui

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I thought at first  that  Ánh’s New Word: A Story about Learning a New Language would be more about the learning of English as a second language than what it was. Now, yes, it is about learning English, but it is also about learning how to be brave, how to have the courage to try and the idea of family being there for you. Anh is a young child who moved to the US from Vietnam and is living in a relocation camp with her […]

The Abuela, the Grandson and the Parrot

Squawk of Spanish by Gabriella Alderman

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I have read several books about “not speaking language X” and the troubles it causes with family and/or friends. This time, in Squawk of Spanish, we have a young boy, Max, who cannot speak Spanish well (he has trouble with his rolling Rs), but that’s okay, his grandmother’s parrot does! So when the two (abuela and grandson) bake together, between the three of them, they have their routine down and get the job done. But when the parrot has decided to not to come home […]

Travel with books

Tomorrow Is New Year's Day: Seollal, A Korean Celebration of the Lunar New Year by Aram Kim

One White Crane: A Bilingual Counting Book of the Months by Vickie Lee

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I was thinking the other day that I want to travel. Well, since my bank account really laughed at me, I decided to go to the bookstore and find some books. And since I am spoiled, I found two books in online reader copies to read. The first Tomorrow Is New Year’s Day: Seollal, A Korean Celebration of the Lunar New Year by Aram Kim and the second was One White Crane: A Bilingual Counting Book of the Months by Vickie Lee and illustrated by […]

A cup of potato

Luli and the Language of Tea by Marie Aang

The Pet Potato by Josh Lacey

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In a recent picture book reading marathon I came out with four books under my belt. Since there was a lot to say about each one, I split the reviews into two. This is officially the second, but you can read them either way. Now, I was trying to come up with a theme for the two books I am currently writing about, Luli and the Language of Tea by Marie Aang and illustrated by Hyewon Yum, and The Pet Potato by Josh Lacey and […]

The universal language of unconditional love

Quiet Time with My Seeya by Dinalie Dabarera

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CBR15Passport country When you see a title like, Quiet Time with My Seeya (or at least me), I assume that you will get an outlined story. Meaning: Step one: Grandparent is coming. Or child goes to grandparent. Step two: Child is bored, and grandparent makes magic. Or the child knows grandparent makes magic. Step three: They have lots of fun, maybe learning something new, but always a happy generational story.   There is nothing wrong with this story format. It is a good format and I like […]

Rich language and culture

Spanish Is the Language of My Family by Michael Genhart

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I assumed that Spanish Is the Language of My Family would take the format of “this is my family, and we speak Spanish” and then a list of wonderful Spanish words such as an alphabet book might give or beginning Spanish words would be given. Well, we get the wonderful words, but also a bit more. There is a spelling bee and a history lesson on how many children (we will learn from the 1930s to 1960s) that were not allowed to speak Spanish outside […]



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