Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time
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Get out your drapes and rumba

Jazz Owls: A Novel of the Zoot Suit Riots by Margarita Engle

May 3, 2019 by BlackRaven Leave a Comment

Get out your drapes and start to jump, leap and swing to the beat! You will Rumba the night away! Jazz Owls: A Novel of the Zoot Suit Riots by Margarita Engle is a prose poetry book that reads like a novel. Each character (and there are several, some named and some just their occupation) has a story to tell about California in the early years of the Untied States time in World War Two. American born sisters, 16-year-old Marisela and 14-year-old Lorena just want […]

Filed Under: Fiction, History, Poetry, Young Adult Tagged With: 20th century his, california, Dance, Los Angeles history, Margarita Engle, Race relations, Racism, Rudy Gutierrez, Zoot Suit Riots

BlackRaven's CBR11 Review No:150 · Genres: Fiction, History, Poetry, Young Adult · Tags: 20th century his, california, Dance, Los Angeles history, Margarita Engle, Race relations, Racism, Rudy Gutierrez, Zoot Suit Riots ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

Mirrors that don’t reflect reality

December 29, 2018 by teresaelectro 3 Comments

I received Boy, Snow, Bird from an earlier CBR book exchange, but it had been collecting dust for a few years. I finally had a reason to pick it back up when my Mocha Girls Read book club selected it for a fairytale’s retold theme. Helen Oyeyemi’s novel is a VERY loose version of Snow White set in the 1950s. Boy Novak runs away to a small town to escape her abusive father. She meets a man named Arturo who isn’t quite a prince, but he […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: 1950s, book club read, Boy Snow Bird, fairy tale retelling, Helen Oyeyemi, magical realism, mirrors, Race, Race relations, snow white fairy tale

teresaelectro's CBR10 Review No:14 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: 1950s, book club read, Boy Snow Bird, fairy tale retelling, Helen Oyeyemi, magical realism, mirrors, Race, Race relations, snow white fairy tale ·
Rating:
· 3 Comments

You know your love keeps on lifting me, lifting me higher and higher

November 1, 2018 by Dusty Highway 2 Comments

CBR10Bingo: Fahrenheit 451 (BINGO!) When I named Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon as one of my three desert island books earlier this year, I realized two things: (1) I’ve only read it once, and that was about 15 years ago, and (2) I haven’t even owned a copy for half that time, having lost track of my original through several big moves (I blame my ex). I bought a fresh copy this spring, and when CBR10Bingo rolled around, I had this book in mind for […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: #CBR10, African American fiction, banned books, cbr10bingo, class tension, desert island book, Nobel Prize, Race relations, Toni Morrison

Dusty Highway's CBR10 Review No:59 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: #CBR10, African American fiction, banned books, cbr10bingo, class tension, desert island book, Nobel Prize, Race relations, Toni Morrison ·
Rating:
· 2 Comments
White Kids: Growing up with privilege in a racially divided America, by Margaret Hagerman

The kids are all white

October 15, 2018 by J 1 Comment

Margaret Hagerman* puts a new spin on how we race by exploring the development of racial attitudes among affluent white midwestern tweens. Hagerman interviewed children from families in three different neighborhoods in the same midwestern metropolitan area, each with varying degrees of wealth (though all families are affluent) and diversity. She interviews not only the children, but also the parents, with the goal of illustrating how children formulate ideas about race. Rather than adopting their parents’s notions of race uncritically, children engage with the world […]

Filed Under: Non-Fiction Tagged With: kids, Margaret A. Hagerman, NetGalley, Parenting, Race relations

J's CBR10 Review No:18 · Genres: Non-Fiction · Tags: kids, Margaret A. Hagerman, NetGalley, Parenting, Race relations ·
Rating:
· 1 Comment

Modern Fairytale. Race Relations. Intriguing premise, flat execution.

May 26, 2017 by cheerbrarian Leave a Comment

Ohhhhh boy.  This book.  This was the last pick of the local library book club of the year, and it was much anticipated.  It has received much acclaim, NPR said great things about it, and but for me, and my book club, it widely missed the mark.  It was NOT loved.  Or liked even.  At this club we (about 16 folks) go around the room and give a score to a scale of 5 and this one didn’t even get past three.  And there were a […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: 1950s, Boy Snow Bird, Helen Oyeyemi, Race relations

cheerbrarian's CBR9 Review No:15 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: 1950s, Boy Snow Bird, Helen Oyeyemi, Race relations ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

“I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.”

March 31, 2015 by narfna 5 Comments

Straight up, this is a classic even among classics, and so I’m giving myself permission right up front for this review not to be important or add anything to the conversation at all. I don’t actually think I’m capable of saying anything that hasn’t already been said by people who said it better than I ever could. I feel like the only way this book can be reviewed now is either by looking at it through the context of today’s societal lens, or by relating […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: classics, harper lee, literary, narfna, Pulitzer Prize, Race relations, social class, to kill a mockingbird

narfna's CBR7 Review No:45 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: classics, harper lee, literary, narfna, Pulitzer Prize, Race relations, social class, to kill a mockingbird ·
Rating:
· 5 Comments
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