Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I believe in mermaids and sister-cousins

My Cousin's Mermaid: A Story from Poland by Anna Staniszewski

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cbr15bingo Europe I saw it in a catalog. I saw it online. I was thinking it was a, “I probably should read this” book, but maybe not right away. Then my book dealer hooked me up with a sample copy of My Cousin’s Mermaid: A Story from Poland. It was now time to read (except I had to actually work and not have fun by reading. A drawback to getting your book fix sent to you at work).be Anna Staniszewski took the legends, folklore and stories […]

“Who knows upon what soil they fed/ Their hungry thirsty roots?”

Goblin Market by Diane Zahler

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But Lizzie was speechless. She simply held up the hairbrush, clumps of yellow hair dangling from it. Minka screamed, clapping her hands to her head. But it was too late. Much of her hair had separated from her scalp, and it lay in a mound in Lizzie’s lap, like a fairy-tale pile of straw that had been spun into gold. Lizzie is shy and nervous, but when her sister Minka falls prey to a mysterious boy at the marketplace and his strange fruit, she must […]

Polish prosecutor Teodor solves murders and maybe also murders people?

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Hey guys, guess what?  This is THE FINAL BOOK IN A SERIES! “Why kfishgirl, that’s so unlike you to start a series in the middle or the end” you might say. You would never say that, because it’s my favorite!  I think at least half of my reviews are on books that are in the middle of series. If anyone was (obsessively) following my reviews as I went, they’d think there was something wrong with me.  What kind of person can’t figure out that a […]

Never get involved in a land war in Asia

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I will admit, I thought I might be out-smarting these books, with the formula all figured out, but this one, the third in the “Temeraire” series, totally took me on a ride. Delightful, surprising, and exciting. Well played, Novik. Black Powder War bothers with barely any passage of time after Throne of Jade. The company is still in China, preparing for travel back to England, when natural disaster and politics coincide and intervene, causing Laurence and Temeraire to take their scrappy crew of aviators overland […]

A 10-Year-Old’s View of Life Behind the Iron Curtain

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This 2011 graphic novel, which is kid-friendly, is Marzena Sowa’s memoir of childhood in Poland in the 1980’s, the time of Lech Walesa, Solidarity, Pope John Paul II, Chernobyl, and the ordinary every day life of a 10 year old. It’s beautifully told with humor, sadness, and ultimately optimism. I think tweens would identify with Marzi’s hopes, joys and frustrations, while also getting an education about life behind the Iron Curtain just before it started to fall. In many ways, Marzi is a fairly typical […]



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