Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Purple thumbs and stabby plants

Prunella by Beth Ferry

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Along with Millie Fleur’s Poison Garden by Christy Mandin, the picture book Prunella by Beth Ferry and illustrated by Claire Keane, has given me a new category for books I like: Plants that are Not Your Cute Fluffy Pretty Garden Variety. The surface story is the same with both books: girls who love the spookier, odd, weird, dangers, spiky, thorny plants. They like them so much that they are isolated from their communities and peers. In both cases, the parent(s) encourage this individuality, even if […]

Free Spirit Publishing has some neat books

Thank You, Night by Dan McCauley

Thank You, Rain by Dan McCauley

B Is for Belonging by Shannon Anderson

Hello, Beech Tree! by Rasha Hamid

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A while back I saw two online reader copies that had intriguing covers (or thumbnails of the cover as it was only a small image). I liked them, but figured I knew what they were about by judging the cover. Thank You, Night and Thank You, Rain looked like they would be nice father and child stories. One set at night and one set in/around a rainy day. And I was not wrong. (Yes, I read them eventually.) They had more to them than those […]

The Unforgiving Desert

Journal of the Dead by Jason Kersten

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CBR16 Bingo – Fiasco: David and Raffi’s trip into Rattlesnake Canyon is an utter fiasco from start to finish. When authorities find Raffi Kodikian barely alive four days after he and his best friend David Coughlin got lost in an desert canyon, they make a grim discovery. Raffi claims to have stabbed David to death in a mercy killing, but the police suspect the truth may be darker. It was awkward on my way out of the library with this book, because another patron, intrigued […]

A tour of the solar system in prose, poetry, and prosody (from Kirkus Reviews (03/01/2024))

A Planet Is a Poem by Amanda West Lewis

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I will start with, unfortunately I did not finish A Planet Is a Poem by Amanda West Lewis and illustrated by Oliver Averill. Not because it is a bad book, but because it is a fantastic book. It is just a difficult read via an online copy for me. Also, the subjects (planets and poetry) are not something everyone would be into. Plus it is really not in a format that one expects when talking about space, planets or poetry. It is not pure science […]

What You Need in a Mountain Hike Guide

Day Hiking in the North Georgia Mountains by Jim Parham

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Minor irony: I ended up getting two local trail/hiking guides at the bookstore, and it turns out the impulse grab (on sale) one was the more useful. Go figure. So, now for Day Hiking the North Georgia Mountains. This book is as the title suggests a description and guide for the various hiking trails in the norther third or so in the state of Georgia. I need this for seeing how much trouble I’m getting myself into for a trail race in soCA in about […]

I’m not cold, just my habitat

Cold by Tim McCanna

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Cold is different for everyone. Poetry is different for everyone. And in Tim McCanna’s picture book, Cold, we get a lovely, lush illustrated book that has a story within the art as well as complimenting the text that deals with both subjects. The poetry is how the rhyming text with each page gives us a short burst of poetic information about how in cold there is life and how the cold itself is a character that moves about, leading us to the different places the […]



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