Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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An orphan boy and a rich girl try and save a city

City of Secrets by Victoria Ying

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Steampunk and almost magic (see robot that is sentient but needs help to fly) comes into play in the graphic novel, City of Secrets by Victoria Ying. This wild adventure of two young teens, Ever and Hannah, who must save their city recalls such things as Avatar the Last Airbender, Wizard of Oz, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Transformers, and pretty much any action-adventure story you know. The fantasy and realism combine to make a relatable, mystery, adventurous tale. Every page is filled with mischief, […]

Annie with Blonde Curls

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate

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This is the second time I’ve read a book this year and not known until the end that it was based on a true story. Just like my experience with Grace is Gone, I got to the end of Before We Were Yours to find A Note From the Author about the real life story of Georgia Tann. Tann is considered the “Mother of Modern Adoption,” which sounds like a really beautiful moniker, and in many ways, her work benefited children throughout the world. However, the dark […]

Two books, one review

The Graveyard Book Graphic Novel: Volume 1 by Neil Gaiman

The Graveyard Book Graphic Novel: Volume 2 by P. Craig Russell

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The Graveyard Book Volume 1 and Volume 2 are based on the Neil Gaiman middle reader novel of the same name. I have not read a lot of Gaiman, but what I have, I have not necessarily loved. (Though the movie Coraline was fun and the audio of it was an experience.) However, P. Craig Russell’s graphic novel adaptation shows how Gaiman’s reputation might have been earned. The two volumes are an interestingly wild ride. I wish I had found a complete one volume (hence […]

The Hero Played Fiddle

The Bravest Man in the World by Patricia Polacco

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Covers speak a lot about what might be in a book. I looked at the cover of The Bravest Man in the World by Patricia Polacco and thought, “I wonder if this is about a Jewish man in a concentration camp?” For some reason it had that feeling of how music can keep you free during great turmoil. But then saw the ship behind him, “Aaaah. A book about the Titanic.” (I still think a story of the Titanic fits that theme.) This book has […]

Alli Reviews “The Lonely Hearts Hotel”

The Lonely Hearts Hotel by Heather O’Neill

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I think I might need to start making a list of where I heard about certain books, that way once they are finally available at the e-library I will know why I wanted to read them in the first place. This book overall was fairly good, but it was strange an a bit manipulative and I wonder who told me to read it. “The Lonely Hearts Hotel” is a book set in and around the Great Depression and follows the lives of two orphans in […]

Too many subplots that could have been novels themselves

Orphan #8 by Kim van Alkemade

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Seems like books about orphans are a “thing” lately. Well, I can only think of Orphan Train, which I read last year, and of course the main character in A Little Life, also read last year…but I digress already. This orphan is a Jewish girl in a New York City Jewish orphanage system in the 1920’s and onward, placed there with her brother after her father accidentally murders her mother and takes off for the road. Early in her life, Rachel Rabinowitz and her other […]



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