Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The size of history

We Are American, Too by Kristen Mei Chase and Jieting Chen

The Memory Cake by Caroline L. Perry and Jen Bricking

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History is all around us. And history can be as large as World War II or as small as being the second person of your race being born in a town.  We Are American, Too tackles that second theme. Kristen Mei Chase and illustrator Jieting Chen follow a family on an important day of celebration. They are honoring their history, family, their people and even themselves. The originality of the book comes from how the story is told, instead of “just another immigrant story” which […]

A girl and her island

Yukie’s Island: My Family’s World War II Story. by Yukie Kimura, Kodo Kimura

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Yukie is a young girl who lives on an island with her parents and siblings. She plays and explores with her brother, helps their father keep the lighthouse going, and is excited when they leave the island for school, even on the day she lost her lunch overboard and the fish had a feast because of it. She is a typical young girl, except this is not a story of just any girl, or any island, but one of a young Japanese girl during World […]

Hail To the President

Brave Volodymyr: The Story of Volodymyr Zelensky and the Fight for Ukraine by Linda Elovitz Marshall

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After reading the chapter book about ghosts, I found a book about Volodymyr Zelensky. I figured you cannot get farther apart in subjects, so it was the perfect next read.  Now, I will say that while I enjoyed Brave Volodymyr: The Story of Volodymyr Zelensky and the Fight for Ukraine, it is slanted. The start of this picture book was telling us in the most poetic manner how beautiful the Ukrainian flag is. How magnificent. How proud the people of Ukraine are of it. Now, […]

It was 10:58 AM

The Eleventh Hour by Jacques Goldstyn

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I want to just put a billion tears on this review for The Eleventh Hour. OMG! This book is NOT for the sensitive reader. It is a picture book (due in paper mid-August 2023; read via an online reader copy), but I do not know one child I would give this, too. With that said, it might be an interesting book for a classroom doing World War One or Canadian history, or for any Veteran’s Day events. The story is about two friends, Jim and […]

A story needed to be (but never should have had to be) told

Between Shades of Gray: The Graphic Novel by Andrew Donkin

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Between Shades of Gray: The Graphic Novel is a wow book! Adapted by Andrew Donkin, the Ruta Sepetys novel comes to life in a graphic novel format. The story of one family shows another side of world history, and how in World War II, the Soviet Union was not just fighting Germany, but its own people as well. It might not be for everyone as there is much in the way of concepts and content that might be difficult, even for adults. A little-known piece […]

This elephant didn’t fly but did help save a village

Bandoola: The Great Elephant Rescue by William Grill

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Bandoola: The Great Elephant Rescue has a mixture of styles. I mean, while this is a non-fiction story about James Howard Williams and an elephant name Bandoola, it is also written as a fiction story. There are facts about elephants, what they eat, etc., as well as what is used and done of the teak plantation. The story is a bit controversial as it does depict the fact elephants in Myanmar were used to harvest the teak for sale around the world. It mentions some […]



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