Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Read a little poetry

Can I Touch Your Hair? Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship    by Irene Latham, Charles Waters, Sean Qualls and Selina Alko

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Can I Touch Your Hair? Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship  by Irene Latham (author), Charles Waters (author), Sean Qualls (illustrator), Selina Alko (illustrator)   I had forgotten I read the poetry collection, Can I Touch Your Hair? years ago, therefore, it felt like reading it for the first time with this recent reading. This is a unique treat as current events and my new experiences change how I relate to things. It is an interesting format, that must have been a fresh idea that […]

It is not a Pain to read about this Great One

Otherwise Known as Judy the Great: A Poetic Ode to Judy Blume by Selina Alko

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Perhaps I should have waited to add Otherwise Known as Judy the Great: A Poetic Ode to Judy Blume by Selina Alko to my Best of This Year Reads list, but I did not know I was going to read it when I put my list together. Besides, it is all good as I will let you know here how FREAKING awesome this book is now. Due in February 2026 (perfectly timed as Blume’s birthday is the 12th of February) this book is set up […]

Helping hands keeping stories alive

The Keeper of Stories by Caroline Kusin Pritchard

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The story within the pages of The Keeper of Stories by Caroline Kusin Pritchard and illustrator  Selina Alko is fairly simple. It is about the Jewish Theological Seminar library told in poetic language that tells from the start to the devastating fire in 1966. The publisher description says: When a fire breaks out at the Jewish Theological Seminary library, helping hands from across the community rally together to save the books and preserve the stories within the pages. Includes factual backmatter on the Jewish Theological […]

They paved paradise But she paved the way

Joni: The Lyrical Life of Joni Mitchell by Selina Alko

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Our musical tastes are formed by a variety of ways. My first influence was my mother. I knew who Elvis was before I could shake my hips and dance in my blue suede shoes! I even knew old school and (then) contemporary (nowadays “classics” and the classics “that old stuff”) country music. One day my I was gifted some 45s of one of my uncles and it was all over. The Beatles were the thing. And musical experimentation of an odd teen (i.e.: I was […]

Shaking Things Up

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Poems about 14 different women who “shook things up” and changed the world are seen on the pages of Shaking Things Up: 14 Young Women Who Changed the World by Susan Hood. Various female illustrators illustrate each person’s story in their signature style. From Ruby Bridges (not a woman, but a 6-year-old girl) to the first woman NYC fire fighter (and slave to a local firefighter) to a pair of sisters who were spies (and very important to the war effort. And one was even […]



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