Cannonball Read 12

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The kids are alright

Dress Coded by Carrie Firestone

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I finished this lovely novel and immediately downloaded it to my tween’s Kindle so she could read it, too. (She did not. I regret every time I try to make her read something and she insists on choosing her own reading material. It’s the worst.) Dress Coded opens with Molly Frost interviewing her classmate Olivia for a podcast. Olivia is currently the most hated girl in 8th grade. See, Olivia was busted for a dress code violation and in doing so, lost the entire class […]

Self-love out of self-loathing: Genesis Begins Again

Genesis Begins Again by Alicia D. Williams

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Genesis has taken hating herself to a new level: she has a long list of reasons she can’t stand herself and she’s adding to it every day. She gets help, too: from her father, who can’t help commenting in his drunken rants on how she had to end up dark like him instead of light like her beautiful mother, to the kids at school who’ve covered every cruel name for her dark skin.  Genesis has a hard time making friends anyway. Every time she starts […]

“Because all the words I could think of—bullying, teasing, flirting—seemed too simple, too small, to hold all the hurt I was feeling.”

Maybe He Just Likes You by Barbara Dee

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Mila used to love wearing her green fuzzy sweater. That is, until a group of boys at school started calling it lucky.  It began at recess one day, when the boys joined into a group hug between her friends uninvited. Since then, they’ve narrowed their focus in on her. One day, a boy brushes her shoulder and she’s pretty sure it was intentional.  Another, someone wants to touch her fuzzy sweater for luck in the basketball game. One day, a boy asks her for a […]

“But if you could tell science like a story, I’d pay attention.”

The Line Tender by Kate Allen

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Lucy’s mother was a marine biologist who was particularly interested in sharks. People told her mother that this enthusiasm would get her killed, but it was a brain aneurysm that ended up taking her life. Lucy was seven when that happened, and while she still finds herself occasionally swept up in bouts of grief, she and her father are getting by. Friends and neighbors help a lot. Fred from across the street is her best friend, though now at 13 years old, she is beginning […]

“Not that an asteroid crashing into our planet is a good thing, but it does put everything else into perspective.”

The World Ends in April by McAnulty, Stacy

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Eleanor Dross is getting a little weary of her life. School, as always, is terrible. She has only one friend, and while Mack is the best, she could do without everyone else ignoring her or worse.  Her grades? Let’s not talk about it. And home life, it’s fine, but nothing to, well, write home about. Her recently widowed dad is doing his best. And they have Grandpa Joe to help out too. But Joe is a “prepper” – that is to say, he’s most excited […]



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